MEMORIES OF A LONG 
LIFE IN VIRGINIA 








C v£ 



Class _ 
Book___JVLL 



CCFVHJGHT DEPOSIT. 




Major General Andrew Moore 






Aj*jtsL 



Memories of a Long Life 
in Virginia 



MRS. JOHN H. MOORE 

Lexington, Va. 



Printed by 

The McClure Company, Inc. 

Staunton, Va. 



X 

•A 



Copyright by 

MRS. JOHN H. MOORE 

Lexington, Va. 

1920 






©CU566075 



PREFACE 

The writer of these pages is now nearly eighty 
years old. She has been an unusually close and in- 
telligent observer, and her memory is wonderfully 
vivid and accurate. She is one of the few people 
now living who knew well Stonewall Jackson be- 
fore the War between the States, and General 
Robert E. Lee, and his family, when General Lee 
lived in Lexington after the war, as president of 
Washington College. Some of the friends of Mrs. 
Moore have thought that her recollection of these 
great men, and of other prominent people and 
events, were worthy of a permanent record, and at 
the insistence of these friends, this little book has 
been written. It is printed just as dictated by her, 
without editing, and it will doubtless be found that 
her original, and at times quaint style, will add 
much to the interest and attractiveness of the narra- 
tive. 



ONE OF HER FRIENDS. 



Lexington, Virginia, 
December 1, 1919. 



ANCESTORS 

I am now in my eightieth year, health delicate, 
and nearly blind, but my friends have urged me to 
write some of my early recollections. I have not 
kept my letters or written a diary, so I must depend 
on my memory, and things I have heard from 
others, principally from my father and mother. 

My father was Samuel McDowell Moore, and 
my mother was Evalina Alexander, youngest child 
of Andrew Alexander, who owned a large farm near 
Lexington, Virginia, where I was born on the 20th 
of May, 1840. 

Andrew Alexander, my grandfather, owned many 
slaves, he would never sell one, thought it wrong. 
He had a school for his slaves, said he wanted 
everyone on his plantation to be able to read the 
Bible, and my mother told me of her teaching the 
maids in the house to read and write. The black- 
smith on the place had a school ; he was one of the 
slaves. When my grandfather died, my uncle, Wil- 
liam Dandridge Alexander, his eldest son, a lawyer 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

in Georgia, came on to settle up the estate. The 
negroes were given their choice as to whether they 
would stay in Virginia. A few who had wives on 
other plantations stayed, all the rest wanted to go 
with "Marse William." So they made a caravan of 
covered wagons drawn by mules and horses and 
moved to a cotton plantation my uncle had bought 
near Griffin, Georgia. This was about 1843. There 
were no railroads then. When the Civil War came 
on, my uncle built a large house on the plantation 
and invited his two brothers-in-law to move their 
families there, as Virginia would be the battle- 
ground, but we stayed in Virginia. 

My uncle was a lawyer, and never married. He 
was well off, and he raised a company of soldiers — 
The Alexander Rifles (he was too old for the army 
himself), and equipped them, sent them to Virginia, 
and supported their families during the War. At 
one time he came on to Richmond, Virginia, during 
the War, to see about his company, when he heard 
of some of them being in the hospital there. After 
the war he divided his plantation out to his negroes, 
and tried to make them self supporting, and he left 
pensions to some of the older ones in his will. 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

The Alexanders were Earls of Sterling in Scot- 
land, and descended from King Robert Bruce by his 
daughter Marjory. I bought two volumes, "His- 
tory of the House of Alexander," in Scotland. 

My mother's mother was Anne Dandridge Aylett 
from King William County, Virginia. She was a 
near relative through the Dandridges of Mrs. Mar- 
tha Washington, wife of General Washington, and 
a descendant of Thomas West, Lord Delaware, one 
of the first Governors of Virginia. She died when 
my mother was only five years old. My mother as 
a young girl spent a great deal of time with rela- 
tives in Richmond and King William County, and 
with her uncle, Doctor Archibald Alexander, Presi- 
dent of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and 
his family at Princeton, New Jersey, and with 
friends in New York and Philadelphia. 

My father, Samuel McDowell Moore, eldest child 
of Andrew Moore, was named for his grandfather, 
Samuel McDowell. His mother was Sarah Reid, 
eldest child of Andrew Reid and Magdelene Mc- 
Dowell. 

My grandmother told me that when she was 
fourteen years old she rode on horseback from 

7 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Lexington, Virginia, to Lexington, Kentucky, to 
visit her grandfather and grandmother, Samuel Mc- 
Dowell and his family, who had moved with their 
family to Kentucky — then part of the State of Vir- 
ginia. My grandmother accompanied two of her 
uncles McDowell, members of the Legislature at 
Williamsburg, Virginia, who were going home. 
There were no roads to Kentucky, only paths 
through the forests, and at one place they passed, a 
party of twenty people had been murdered just two 
weeks before, by the Indians. My grandmother 
was with a large party; all the men were armed, 
and when they camped at night sentinels were 
posted. Some of the old men thought the sentinels 
were becoming careless, and after telling the women 
of the party, they went into the woods and gave 
fearful Indian war whoops in the night, and scared 
the young sentinels badly. They were more careful 
afterwards. 

My grandmother was eighteen years old, and 
my grandfather was forty-four when they were 
married. She was married at her father's home 
near Lexington, Virginia, "Mulberry Hill." The 
day she was married she put on a cap with a high 

8 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

crown, having one and a quarter yards of muslin 
in it. My grandfather was a member of Congress, 
then sitting in Philadelphia. They went in a car- 
riage with four horses, and had a baggage wagon 
with servants, and it took them two weeks to get 
there. They had to cross the Susquehanna River 
on a ferryboat; when they reached it, the weather 
was too stormy to cross, and they had to wait 
several days; the ferryman gave up his cabin to 
my grandmother. They lived on Pine Street in 
Philadelphia, in a house with Hancock, of Massa- 
chusetts. My father was born there, the 9th of 
February, 1796. 

My grandmother said Mrs. Washington was not 
pretty, a small, plump woman ; she thought General 
Washington a grand looking man, noble and hand- 
some. My grandmother wore a blue satin dress 
and heels to her shoes a finger length high when 
she went in to dinner with General Washington. 

My grandfather, Andrew Moore, was born in 
1752 at "Cannecello," his father's place in Rock- 
bridge County. His grandfather came over from 
Ireland in 1740; they were Scotch-Irish. He was 
educated and studied law. He was the representa- 

9 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

tive of his district in the first Congress, and he was 
the first United States Senator from west of the 
Blue Ridge Mountains. He represented Rock- 
bridge in the Legislature of Virginia for many years, 
and was a member of the State Convention of 
1788 which ratified the Federal Constitution. He re- 
fused to obey the instructions of his constituents, 
who instructed him to oppose the Constitution at 
all hazards. He had been a captain in Morgan's 
Rifle Corps, in the Revolutionary War, having 
raised a company of a hundred men in one day in 
Rockbridge County. He was at the surrender of 
Burgoyne at Saratoga. 

I copy from an address of Hugh Blair Grigsby, 
delivered at Washington College, June 22, 1870: 

"General Moore was in his day the represen- 
tative man of the West. Every civil and mili- 
tary office within the gift of Virginia and the 
people was freely bestowed upon him. His 
public career began in 1776, and from that 
time to the date of his death, 1826 — a lapse of 
forty-five years — he can hardly be said to have 
been out of the public service. As a soldier, as 
a member of the House of Delegates, as a 
10 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

member of both Houses of Congress, as a brig- 
adier and major-general, and as the United 
States Marshall of Virginia, he performed his 
various duties with the approbation of his 
country." 
In the same address he also said in speaking of 
General Moore: 

"It happened that when Washington re- 
ceived the grant of the James River shares 
from the State of Virginia, Moore was a mem- 
ber of the House of Representatives, and was 
sent for by the Father of his Country to be 
consulted about appropriating the shares to 
the use of some literary institution above the 
falls of the rivers. General Moore presented 
the claims of Liberty Hall, and after a consul- 
tation with his colleague from the Washington 
district, the late General Francis Preston, who 
united with him in urging upon Washington 
the claims of the Academy, he wrote to the 
trustees, who presented their case in the able 
argument already noticed in the sketch of 
Graham, and received that generous benefac- 
tion which you still enjoy. I also may add 
11 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

that he probably drew your charter, and cer- 
tainly guarded and guided it in its passage 
through the Assembly." 

General Moore was one of the trustees of Wash- 
ington College. 

When Major Andre was about to be executed as 
a spy my grandfather was the officer in charge, 
and as he had known and liked Andre, he begged 
Washington to excuse him from this duty, which 
he did. 

My father, Samuel McDowell Moore, was born 
in Philadelphia where his father, General Andrew 
Moore, was in Congress from Virginia. He was 
brought to his home in Lexington when an infant. 
He was educated at Washington College, now 
Washington and Lee University, and afterwards 
studied law. He was elected to the Legislature in 
1825, and continued in that body until 1833. He 
was elected to the Convention of 1829 to amend 
the Constitution of Virginia; he was elected to 
Congress in 1833, and served many years in the 
Legislature and State Senate, and in 1861 was elect- 
ed to the Virginia Convention as a Union man. 

I copy from resolutions of the Bar of Lexington 
12 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

on the death of Honorable Samuel McDowell 
Moore. After reciting the different positions he 
had filled, they said: 

"In all these positions he exibited high tal- 
ent, indomitable will, unflagging energy, stern 
integrity, and the truest devotion to his 
country and his country's interest and honor. 
He was essentially and in all respects 'an hon- 
est man,' the noblest work of God, as a hus- 
band, a Father, a citizen, a neighbor, and a 
friend he was in the strictest sense of the 
word a true man. Here where he lived and 
died, where he was beloved and honored by 
the people, his memory will be ever cherish- 
ed and revered." 
These lines from Tennyson were quoted in the 
newspaper announcing his death: 

"Oh iron nerve to true occasion true, 
Oh fall'n at length that tower of strength 
Which stood four square to all the winds 
i that blew!"* 



*A gentleman from Staunton told me that the first time 
he ever saw my father he was pointed out to him on the 
street in Staunton as being the best formed man physi- 

13 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

The McDowells came to this country from Ire- 
land by way of Pennsylvania in 1737 — pure Scotch. 
The Scotch-Irish went from Scotland to Ireland, 
but never married or mingled with the Irish Pa- 
pists. The animosity and dislike has continued 
between the two races to this day. 

Samuel McDowell/ 1 ' my father's great-grandfath- 
er for whom he was named, was born in 1733. He 
was educated and studied law. He fought the 
Indians in many expeditions; was at the battle of 



cally and as having the best walk and carriage of any 
man in Virginia. My father always went to see his 
mother, who lived in another part of the town from us, 
every morning after breakfast before going to his law 
office. 

There was not a State Convention in Virginia that one 
of my family was not in until after the Civil War. Gen. 
Andrew Moore was in the Convention that ratified the 
Constitution of the United States and voted for it. My 
father, Sam'l McD. Moore, was in the Convention of 
1829, and my uncle, Capt. David E. Moore, was in the 
next Convention, and my father was a member of the 
Convention of 1861, at the beginning of the war between 
the states. 

*The sister of Samuel McDowell married a Greenlee. 
When she was a hundred years old she had such a re- 
markable memory that when there was difficulty in estab- 
lishing the boundaries of land in the county, men went 
to her, took her deposition, and she told them of the 
boundaries of the lands, often fixed by a stream, logs, a 
rock or hill, and they verified them. 

14 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Point Pleasant. He was a member of the House 
of Burgesses and carried the Augusta Resolutions 
to that body recommending a declaration of in- 
dependence from the British Government, and he 
voted for a dissolution of the Union with Great 
Britain. In October, 1776, he was a member of the 
first House of Delegates under the Constitution, 
and cordially co-operated with Jefferson and 
George Mason in carrying through the bill abol- 
ishing entails, and the bill for religious freedom, 
and putting the new State on a republican footing. 
On the death of his father in 1743 he became the 
sole heir of all the lands as the oldest son, but he 
divided the property equally with his brother and 
sister. That was long before the law of primo- 
geniture was done away with. After leaving the 
Assembly he was engaged in military services, and 
at the battle of Guilford he commanded a regiment. 
His son John was also in the battle. After the wai 
he with his family moved to Kentucky, then a 
part of Virginia. He was appointed the Circuit 
Judge of his district, and his son William the prin- 
cipal judge. His son Ephriam was a celebrated 
physician, and a monument was erected to his 
memory in Kentucky a few years ago. 

15 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

My grandmother's father was Andrew Reid. 
He was Clerk of the County of Rockbridge for 
many years, and was one of the heroes of Point 
Pleasant. He built "Mulberry Hill," his home near 
Lexington, where he owned a large farm, adjoin- 
ing that of his nephew Andrew Alexander, and he 
inherited another large tract of land, (which has 
since sold for $20,000). He sold it during the 
Revolutionary War for paper money, and after- 
wards bought two cows with this depreciated 
currency. The McDowells were descended from 
Robert Bruce, and all of my Scotch ancestors 
fought for Charles Stuart. 

Magdelene McDowell, daughter of Samuel 
McDowell, married Andrew Reid. She was a very 
bright, intelligent woman and read a great deal. 
I heard my father say that when he and his broth- 
er David were boys staying with their grandpar- 
ents, his grandmother would become so absorbed 
in a book that children or servants would take the 
keys from her outside pockets and get anything 
they wished from the storeroom without her know- 
ing it; and one night her daughters returning from 
evening service at church found her without the 

16 




My Mother, Evelina Alexander Moore 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

high muslin crown of her cap; it had been burned 
off by the candle by which she was reading and 
she did not know it. There was a band of ribbon 
between the crown and the front of the cap. 

My grandfather Moore's oldest brother, William, 
lived to be ninety-three years old. He was in the 
battle of Point Pleasant at the junction of the Ka- 
nawha and Ohio Rivers in 1774, where the Indians 
were defeated. In advancing he saw an Indian 
had wounded Colonel John Steel, and was about 
to tomahawk and scalp him; he shot the Indian, 
and knocked another down with the butt of his 
rifle, and then took Steel, who was very large, on 
his shoulder, and the two rifles in his hand, and 
carried him out of the battle, and then went back 
into the fight. Steel said there was no other man 
who could have done it or would have done it if 
he could. He was an officer in the army at the 
surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. 



17 



ANTE-BELLUM— MEMORIES 

"I remember, I remember, 
The house where I was bom." — Hood. 

I was born May 20th, 1840. My first remem- 
brance is at my grandfather Alexander's. I was 
a very small child. I first remember seeing a large 
room, with shelves filled with books, and a bright 
wood fire. I remember going to church, to the 
old Presbyterian Church that was in the cemetery 
at the head of the town. We went in an old fash- 
ioned carriage, with steps that let down, the steps 
when not in use, folded up inside the door. Dr. 
Skinner, a Scotchman, was the Presbyterian 
preacher. I was christened when I was three years 
old. When the preacher put the water on my fore- 
head, I thought he was playing with me, and I 
ran down the aisle as fast as I could. My mother 
had to go after me to have me christened properly. 
At church a lady and two little girls sat in the pew 
behind us. One Sunday, the nice, kind lady hand- 

18 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

ed me a piece of taffy. Now, my mother was the 
most particular person that I have ever seen ; when 
she turned and saw me, my hands all daubed with 
the sticky molasses candy, she was perfectly shock- 
ed. I remember her catching my hand by the 
wrist and wiping the candy off. As we left the 
church, I remember my mother saying, "What 
did that woman bring molasses candy to church 
for?" 

Soon, we moved down to the new Presbyterian 
Church. The minister always told first the visits 
he was going to pay Monday morning. He would 
begin at Mr. So and So's and spend one half hour 
there, etc., etc. Next, he read out the collection 
for the missionaries. One Sunday morning he 
read out that Mr. So and So had given "Sax and a 
quarter cents to convort the world." The con- 
gregation became dissatisfied with Dr. Skinner 
and asked for his resignation, but he refused to go, 
so he was tried before Synod. Dr. Skinner was 
very smart, prone to ridicule and had attacked 
some of the ladies. Dr. MacFarland and several 
other preachers, among them one named Brown, 
sat at the trial. Dr. MacFarland had an unusual- 

19 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

ly large nose and Mr. Brown had very large, pro- 
minent eyes, so Dr. Skinner said, "As the eyes 
and nose are both against me, there is no chance 
for me." There really was no chance for him and 
he was dismissed. He was succeeded by Dr. 
William S. White, such a good, holy man, a Chris- 
tian whom everyone loved. His prayers were es- 
pecially beautiful and were as though they were 
inspired. He came when I was a child and he died 
here after the Civil War. 

In 1843, my father bought forty acres of ground 
near the Virginia Military Institute and built a 
large, brick house on it. The Institute had begun 
as a school in 1839. My grandfather Alexander 
suggested that it would be better to have a military 
school like West Point, and let the cadets guard 
the Arsenal. Colonel Thomas L. Preston brought 
the subject up in the Franklin Society, where it 
was discussed. The Franklin Literary Society met 
every Saturday night in their own hall, where they 
had a good library. The gentlemen of the town 
would discuss the important subjects of the day, 
and they decided that a military school would do 
well here. A charter was procured from the Leg- 

20 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

islature. It was decided to get a West Point grad- 
uate for superintendent, and Joseph R. Anderson, 
of Botetourt County, a West Point graduate, was 
asked. He refused, but recommended Francis H. 
Smith, also a West Point graduate, who was a pro- 
fessor at Hampden-Sidney College at Farmville, 
Prince Edward County, Virginia. These good old 
Presbyterians wrote to Dr. George Baxter, who was 
President of the Presbyterian Theological Sem- 
inary at Farmville, as he knew Smith very well, to 
ask about him. Dr. Baxter had been pastor of the 
Presbyterian Church in Lexington for years before 
he went to Farmville. He recommended Colonel 
Smith, after which they invited him to come. 
Francis H. Smith accepted and moved to Lexing- 
ton. 

When he arrived at the Institute, it consisted of 
an arsenal, containing arms for the militia. A 
band of soldiers guarded this. In front of the ar- 
senal there was a barracks with a dwelling for 
officers in each end of it. In those days there was 
a general muster of the militia every fall. Major 
John Alexander, my mother's uncle, commanded 
the militia in this county as well as those of the 

21 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

neighboring counties. All of the state at that time 
was laid off in districts. 

When I was a child, I remember my nurse taking 
me down on the street to see the general muster. 
I would see the drilling and the cavalrymen gallop- 
ing up the street. Two men that were specially ad- 
mired were Mr. Hubard Bowyer and Mr. Lewis 
Davidson. They were splendid riders and had fine 
horses. I remember seeing women with stands at 
the street corners, selling cider and "gungers." 
"Gungers" were large, round, flat molasses cakes 
that Mr. Pettigrew made. 

When General Smith, though he did not have 
that title until during the Civil War, first came to 
the Institute, he occupied one of the dwellings in 
one end of the barracks and Colonel Thomas L. 
Williamson the other. The choice of General 
Smith as superintendent proved a very wise one, as 
he was a man of brilliant intellect and wonderful 
energy. He devoted himself to building up the 
school. 

There was a large yellow building for the mess- 
hall, and Mr. Eskridge was the commissary and 
quartermaster. He lived in rooms above the mess- 

22 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

hall. He had four daughters, most attractive 
young ladies. One daughter, Miss Maria, married 
General Lindsay Walker, and another married Col. 
Duke, of Albemarle County. 

Professor Bartlett, of West Point, was detailed 
to come here to assist General Smith in starting 
the school. Many, many years afterwards, my 
husband and I were in Newport, Rhode Island, 
and met General Bartlett and his family there. He 
told us how much he liked General Smith in those 
early days, and about assisting him in starting the 
school. After this General Smith built a super- 
intendent's house on a line with the barracks and 
our house, and about half way between the two. 
Colonel John T. L. Preston was one of the first 
professors and taught Latin. He was a graduate 
of Yale, a very accomplished gentleman. He was 
a grandson of Lord Randolph, of England, and a 
near relative of Edmund Randolph. He belonged 
to the distinguished Preston family of Virginia. 

Colonel Williamson, to whom I have already re- 
ferred, was a gentleman, true, honest, and brave. 
His family were my most intimate friends and 
companions. 

23 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Colonel Gilham was also one of the early pro- 
fessors. He was a Virginian, and his wife came 
from New York. His wife, her sister, and his 
mother-in-law were all beautiful women. Miss 
Hayden, Mrs. Gilham's sister, died with brain fever 
here. She was only eighteen or nineteen and had 
been preparing for a ball at the Institute, so she 
was burried in her ball dress and dancing slippers. 
Her friends among the cadets were her pallbearers 
and they wore long white scarfs that had been ar- 
ranged for them. Her hair had been cut off and my 
mother made a lace cap for her to be burried in. 
The Gilhams being Northern people did not know 
how to get along with our spoiled colored servants. 
When they first came here they hired two very 
accomplished servants from one of my father's 
aunts, — a good cook, and house girl, but they want- 
ed them to do much more work than they were 
accustomed to doing, so they would not stay, but 
walked home. After that Colonel Gilham could 
not hire any other servants in Lexington. 

Thomas J. Jackson was another professor at the 
school; he came in 1851. He roomed at the bar- 
racks and was very intimate at our house, visiting 

24 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

there very often. He was six feet tall, a stiff mili- 
tary looking man. I remember that he always sat 
very upright on his chair. He had fine, blue eyes, 
brown hair, and a good complexion, a handsome 
man. He told my mother once that he felt that 
all ladies were angels. When he was thinking of 
marrying, he consulted with her and made her his 
confidant. Every Sunday morning, when going to 
Sunday School, he would call for me. I was not 
grown at that time. After he had been here for 
some time, he established an afternoon Sunday 
School for colored people in the Presbyterian lec- 
ture room. One of our house girls told me that 
Major Jackson preached better than any of the 
preachers. General D. H. Hill, a great friend of 
Jackson's, was a professor at Washington College. 
His wife was a Miss Morrison, of Charlotte, North 
Carolina. She and her sisters were pretty, cultured, 
and attractive women. Jackson was a very fre- 
quent visitor at the Hill's and also at Dr. Junkin's. 
He married Miss Eleanor Junkin, the second 
daughter of Dr. Junkin, President of Washington 
College. She lived only a year after she was mar- 
ried. Miss Margaret Junkin, the eldest daughter, 

25 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

was the second wife of Colonel John T. L. Preston. 
Jackson lived several years with the Junkins after 
his first wife died. 

When Major Jackson lived at Dr. Junkin's one 
of his sisters in law was an invalid and he used to 
carry her in his arms down stairs every morning, 
and carried her up stairs to her bed-room every 
evening. Major Jackson could not keep awake in 
church, would sit up straight and nod his head. 
One Sunday his youngest sister-in-law stuck a pin 
in his arm while he was asleep and he at once 
pinched her, much to her surprise. A cousin of 
mine, a young man, said that during the Civil War 
there was a large gathering of soldiers, and officers 
for religious services on a hill-side, one Sunday; 
when Jackson, who was seated on a camp stool, 
slept, and rolled off the stool and down the hill, and 
in that whole assembly there was not a smile, such 
was the respect had for Jackson. 

I was in Richmond when I heard that General 
Jackson was wounded. I went at once to see Mrs. 
Jackson, who was staying at Dr. Moses D. Hoge's 
with her baby girl. They had been with Jackson, 
and were just back when the battle began. I said to 

26 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Mrs. Jackson that I hoped his life could be spared, 
as we couldn't do without him. She went to him 
that evening and was with him when he died. I 
have thought that God took Jackson and his prayers 
away when he did not intend us to succeed. Jack- 
son was taken away from the evil to come. His 
second wife was General D. H. Hill's sister-in-law, 
Miss Anna Morrison, of Charlotte, North Carolina. 
They bought the house which is now the Stone- 
wall Jackson Hospital. They had one little girl 
who died there. 

In the autumn of 1860 there was a most beautiful 
display of the Aurora Borealis. The whole north- 
ern sky was aflame, and we had the largest comet 
that I have ever seen. Major Jackson came and 
invited me and the Williamson girls to go and look 
at the comet through his telescope at the Institute. 
As a young girl all my associations were with the 
Institute children, as there was none at Wash- 
ington College. 

There was a green hill between our grounds and 
the Virginia Military Institute parade grounds, be- 
longing to Mr. Alexander Sloan, who kept the hotel 
in the village. He did not like General Smith and 

27 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

would not sell to him, but my father bought the 
lot and sold it to the Institute to enlarge their pa- 
rade grounds. When the hill was being cut down 
on a level with the parade grounds, the rocks flew 
in every direction. A large rock went through the 
roof into the second story bedroom of General 
Smith's house, and one piece of rock flew clear over 
our house into the flower garden. It weighed 
twenty pounds. 

My delight as a child was to see the cadets 
march out on the parade ground with their musi- 
cians, Ruben and Mike, at their head — two very 
black men, dressed in scarlet coats and white pants 
and cocked hats. Ruben was short and round like 
his drum, and Mike was thin and tall like his fife. 
At our church fairs the ladies used to have dolls 
dressed like Ruben and Mike. These dolls were 
great favorites with the Lexington children. 

General Smith was a most devoted Episcopalian. 
The Williamsons and Gilhams were also Episco- 
palians and General Smith was anxious to start an 
Episcopal Church. All the Presbyterians assisted 
him in every way. He bought a lot which was very 
near Washington College, from Mr. William N. 

28 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Tate, of Staunton, a brother-in-law of old Dr. Ed- 
ward Graham. They built a very pretty red brick 
church with white pillars. One Presbyterian elder 
gave $500, and another gave all the stone for the 
foundation of the Church. All contributed liberally. 
When the Church was consecrated, the Presbyterian 
choir sang for the service ; Cousin Betty Alexander, 
Mr. John Lyle, Mr. John Barclay, and others. The 
Bowyers of "Thorn Hill" were among the first 
people confirmed in the new church. Mrs. Bowyer 
was a Miss Hubard, of Eastern Virginia, and had 
been brought up an Episcopalian, and she and her 
four daughters were confirmed, but Mr. Bowyer, 
who was not a member of any church, said, "I'll 
be damned, if I am not a Presbyterian still." My 
mother took me to the Episcopal Church, and 
I asked why all those people were talking out loud 
in the church and she said that they were praying, 
and I promptly said that they must be better than 
the people in our church, because only one man 
prayed there. The first Episcopal preacher that I 
remember was Mr. Robert Nelson, and he was al- 
ways very intimate at our house. He came to our 
house one evening and I said, "Oh, Mr. Nelson, 

29 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

what made you preach in your shirt?" I had never 
seen a surplice. After this all the people connected 
with the Institute were Episcopalians, as far as they 
who could be secured. When the Eskridges left, 
a Mr. Gibbs, an Englishman, was the commissary 
and quartermaster. He was an Episcopalian, as was 
also Mr. Norgrove, another Englishman, who was 
the Institute tailor. Major Thomas J. Jackson 
joined the Presbyterian Church after he came to 
the Institute, as a professor. 

When I was five years old my father was in the 
Legislature, and we spent a winter in Richmond. I 
enjoyed being with so many children of my relatives 
in Richmond and down in King William County. 
When I was eight years old, I had the whooping 
cough, and my little maid, Bella, told me that the 
doctor thought I could not live and that "mistis" 
was crying. My cousin, who was two years older 
than I, came to see me one evening. I asked Bella 
if she would not like to belong to Miss Sarah, and 
she said that she would. So it was agreed that in 
case I died, Cousin Sarah was to have Bella and the 
cat. I learned to read when I was five years old, 
and was going to Miss Campbell's school when I 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

was six. Bella used to go with me to carry my 
books, and always came for me. Miss Campbell's 
school was for the very small children, and the 
Ann Smith Academy for the older girls. 

In those days we did not have the elaborate, com- 
plicated water system* of modern times, but we had 
good, pure water, piped from a large spring in 
Brushy Hills. My grandfather Alexander had 
owned the spring, and he sold one-fourth to the 
town, one-fourth to the Institute, one-fourth to 
College, and kept one-fourth for his family and 
their heirs. A great many people had rather primi- 
tive bathrooms. We had one built just outside the 
house. It had a trough from the hydrant to sup- 
ply it with cold water, and we brought kettles of hot 
water from the kitchen. My father, when asked 
why he had such a large bath tub, replied that he 
wanted one large enough to lie down in. He was 



*There were several other large springs afterwards 
added to the water supply of the town, but the water of 
these Brushy Hill springs was limestone (hard water). 
We now have an abundant supply of soft water from a 
stream (Moore's Creek). The town owns the water shed. 
The little town of Lexington, Virginia, now has good 
pavements, electric street lights, and the houses have all 
modern improvements. 

31 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

six feet tall. I have heard that Dr. Estill, one of 
our leading physicians, in very hot weather would 
lie down in his bath tub to read. One day he was 
found asleep, his book floating on the water. 
Colonel Preston had contracted malaria while visit- 
ing in Missouri. He had chills and fever. When 
the fever would come on him, he would get in a tub 
of cold water. The old ladies thought that it would 
kill him; for at that time all fever patients were 
kept as warm as possible, not even allowed a drink 
of cold water. In addition to these outside bath- 
rooms, everybody had foot-tubs and sitz-baths. In 
those days, though it was a great deal more trou- 
ble, the people bathed as much as they do now, and 
were very neat. Once an old gentleman was visit- 
ing a friend in the country near town. He was 
offered a sitz-bath in his room. The sitz-bath was 
shaped like a large hat with a wide brim that one 
could sit down on. The host forgot to tell his guest 
that the prop for the sitz-bath was broken, and so, 
when he took his seat on the brim, he pitched back- 
wards and he, water, tub, and all went over to- 
gether. He was furious, thinking that a joke had 
been played on him. 

32 



MEMORIES OF A LONG L IFE IN VIRGINIA 

As soon as I was large enough, I went to the 
Ann Smith Academy.* This was a school estab- 
lished for girls by the early settlers and named for 
the first teacher, Miss Ann Smith, who was an 
Englishwoman. My mother had gone there when 
she was a girl. When I went there, Mrs. Notting- 
ham and her four daughters taught the school. 
Miss Lizzie, the eldest, taught the large girls. 
There was a large school room in which Miss Sarah 
taught her classes. Mrs. Nottingham taught the 
smallest children. Miss Mary and Miss Hannah 
both taught music. Miss Mary was deaf and had 
only three of the smallest pupils — myself, Lillie 
McDowell, and Lou Myers. One day she had the 
three of us counting out loud and we made so much 
noise that Miss Sarah had to come in to see what 
was the cause of all the commotion. Miss Hannah 
was very pretty and was quite a belle. The Not- 



*There were pianos at an early date at the Anne Smith 
Academy, and my grandfather, Gen. Andrew Moore, had 
a piano sent from Philadelphia to his home near Lexing- 
ton, Va. His eldest daughter, then only about twelve 
years old, could play quite well, but when she tried to 
play on the new piano, was so overcome with embarrass- 
ment, with the whole family around her, that she made 
a perfect failure. My father's sisters played beautifully. 

33 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

tinghams had a very fine school, and were splen- 
did teachers. They always had some boarding 
pupils too. The old Ann Smith Academy stood 
where the High School now is. 

These old Scotch-Irish settlers always established 
schools and churches wherever they went. This 
part of the country was almost entirely settled by 
them. These people were called Scotch-Irish, and, 
although they had lived in Ireland, they had never 
married or intermingled with the Irish Papists. In 
1749 they had established the Augusta Academy. 
My great-great grandfather's brother, Robert Alex- 
ander, who was an A. M. from Edinburgh Univer- 
sity, taught the school. Soon it was moved nearer 
to Lexington and was called Liberty Hall. General 
Washington endowed the school, and after that it 
was called Washington College. General Wash- 
ington consulted my grandfather, Andrew Moore, 
about endowing this College. This was the only 
school General Washington ever endowed. When 
Liberty Hall burned down, the present center build- 
ing and the buildings on each side of it, with the 
square columns, were built. The first president 
that I remember was Dr. Ruffner. He was suc- 

34 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

ceeded by Dr. Junkin, who had been president of 
Lafayette College in Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Robert Nelson, rector of the Episcopal 
Church, married about this time, and went to 
China as a missionary. Then Dr. William Nelson 
Pendleton, with his family, came here from Fred- 
erick, Maryland, to be rector of the Episcopal 
Church. The Junkins and Pendletons were both 
very accomplished and highly educated people. 

When I was ten years old, in 1850, the corner- 
stone for the new barracks was laid at the Virginia 
Military Institute. I remember going down there 
to see it with my uncle, William D. Alexander. 
Soon after this my uncle, William Alexander, my 
mother and I, with a party, went on a trip all 
through the North. We went as far as Winchester 
in carriages, and the first railroad that I ever saw 
was there ; we took the train and went on to Wash- 
ington. It was a very wonderful sight, seeing the 
railroad. We stopped at the National Hotel. The 
night we reached Washington General Zachery 
Taylor, President of the United States, died, it was 
thought from cholera. He had eaten cherry pie and 
buttermilk. My mother said next day that the toll- 

35 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

ing of the bells had kept her awake. Henry Clay 
was staying at the same hotel with us. My father 
was a devoted friend and admirer of Clay, and when 
my uncle introduced me to him as my father's 
daughter, I remember his patting me on the head 
and talking kindly to me. We went to see General 
Taylor, lying in state in the East Room in the 
White House. I saw the grand funeral procession. 
General Winfield Scott led the military procession. 
Next came the grand funeral car with black and 
white plumes at the corners, and "Old Whitney," 
his war horse, was led behind it. We saw Mr. 
Millard Filmore, the Vice-President, inaugurated in 
the old Senate Chamber. We also saw Daniel Web- 
ster. 

Leaving Washington, we went to Philadelphia. 
The city was draped in black for a mock funeral 
in honor of President Taylor. We left, however, 
before this took place. When we reached New 
York, the city there was also draped with black 
for a mock funeral. The procession took four hours 
to pass, much longer than the original. Soldiers 
and a band led the procession, then came the 
funeral car, with an old white horse led behind it. 

36 



MEMORIES OF A LON G LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Next came groups representing all the trades. I 
remember one group carrying brooms. 

We stayed at the Irving Hotel. Like the mod- 
ern tourists, we went to see all the theatres and 
operas, but what pleased me most was a beautiful 
pantomime of Cinderella at Nibloe's Gardens. We 
went to Saratoga Springs, Niagara Falls, Lake 
Champlain, and to Boston. In Boston, we met our 
cousins from Richmond. They were also travel- 
ing in the North, though we did not know it un- 
til we met them there. 

It was in 1853 that an unfortunate murder oc- 
curred in Lexington. Judge Brockenbrough had a 
large law class here for many years. This class was 
not connected with Washington College in any 
way. It was only after the Civil War that it be- 
came a part of the Washington and Lee University. 
I think it was in 1853, when I was thirteen years 
old, that a man named Christian was in Judge 
Brockenbrough's law class. This man did not 
stand well in the community, neither as to charac- 
ter nor sense. In fact, the class made a hutt of him 
on all occasions. My cousin, Mary E. Anderson, 
who was visiting at my father's house, was intro- 

37 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

duced to Christian at a public entertainment. Her 
friends warned her not to allow him to attend her. 
Soon she received a note from Christian asking to 
escort her to church Sunday night. She declined to 
go with him. She spoke of this to her cousin, 
Thomas Blackburn, a cadet at the Virginia Mili- 
tary Institute. He advised her to have nothing to 
do with Christian. After refusing to go to church 
with Christian, she received a second note from him, 
asking who had influenced her against him. She 
did not answer this note at all. She had only seen 
the man once. She showed the note to young Black- 
burn, who with another cadet, went to see Christian 
and told him that it was he who had influenced his 
cousin. He told him that he knew nothing per- 
sonally about him, had only heard about him 
through hearsay. They parted friends and shook 
hands. This was on Saturday. When the law 
class heard of this, they considered Christian a 
coward and tried to make him challenge Blackburn, 
telling him that he must fight a duel. The conse- 
quence of this was that Christian secretly armed 
himself with a cane, two pistols, and a large bowie- 
knife, went to the Presbyterian Church Sunday 

38 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

night, and waylaid Blackburn at the church door 
to speak to him. Blackburn was with Miss Julia 
Junkin, the pretty daughter of Dr. George Junkin. 
When he had seated the lady, Blackburn went out 
to meet Christian on what is now Nelson street, at 
the side of the church. There young Blackburn 
was soon afterwards found dead. There was a stab 
in his back, the cape of his cadet overcoat cut in 
many places, and the knife had been thrust nearly 
through his throat, cutting both jugular veins. Peo- 
ple who were going into the church found him. The 
cadets were allowed to attend church and to visit on 
Sundays in those days, and also Friday evenings. 
The whole corps was quickly on the scene, as well 
as many other people. Christian, covered with 
blood, fled to the hotel. He was taken out from the 
back door and put in jail. General Smith and other 
officers from the Virginia Military Institute were 
soon on the spot and had the body of Blackburn 
put in a cart and ordered the cadets to follow it to 
the Institute. Some of the law students were 
greatly distressed, thinking they had made the 
creature do the dreadful deed by their teasing and 
nagging, of course, never thinking that Christian 

39 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

would murder Blackburn. Judge Brockenbrough 
and his law class did everything to save Christian. 
He was tried in the court of Bedford, and cleared. 
Shortly after this, when I was thirteen years 
old, my mother and I went to Richmond and to 
Lower Virginia on a trip, visiting relatives. We 
were always visiting, and very often our relatives 
and friends would come to visit us. They would 
drive through the country in carriages or stages. 
A great many people in Lexington had large car- 
riages, because we had to do all our traveling in 
our carriages or in stages, driving from two to four 
horses. When General Smith came, he drove a 
high top barouche at which everybody laughed. 
He drove one horse, "Old Coaly." One night some 
of the students from Washington College stole Gen- 
eral Smith's barouche, carried it to the room they 
then used as a chapel, and nailed it to the platform. 
They hung the harness up on the guard tree on 
the parade ground and led "Old Coaly" out to the 
woods and left him there. General Smith had to 
send Christie Birmingham, an old Irishman who 
was at the Institute for years and years, and some 
other men to get his barouche. All the time they 

40 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

were trying to unfasten it, the students pelted them 
with clods and chips. 

The old hickory guard tree still stands on the pa- 
rade ground. It was called the guard tree because 
when the cadets encamped on the parade ground, 
the guard tent was placed under this hickory tree 
and the guard stationed there. 

When I was fifteen years old, in 1855, I went to 
boarding school in Charlottesville, Virginia. That 
was the fall when the yellow fever was so bad in 
Norfolk. Many of Colonel Williamson's relatives 
came up to stay with him, refugees from the fever. 

I came home to spend Christmas and my mother 
gave a large party on Christmas night. General 
Smith and many of the officers of the Virginia 
Military Institute were at the party. Suddenly, 
Christie Birmingham came running in to tell them 
that the cadets were in rebellion at the barracks. 
General Smith and the officers rushed down there 
at once, and when General Smith appeared under 
the arch, a huge bucket of water was poured upon 
him. In spite of this, he was equal to the occasion. 
He stepped out in the court yard and calling to 
them said that he would give them ten minutes in 

41 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

which to appear. Holding his watch in his hand, 
he waited for them, and had the long roll beaten. 
As they had taken down the steps, they had to 
come sliding down the posts like rats, but every 
man was there on time. 

My father took me back to school. We went as 
far as Staunton in the stage. We had had a very 
deep snow, and were all day going the thirty-six 
miles to Staunton, not arriving there until about 
nine o'clock at night. From Staunton we went over 
the temporary track of the Chesapeake and Ohio 
Railroad, as the tunnel had not been completed. 
We went over the mountain with two engines, one 
in front pulling us, and one behind pushing us. 
The views were magnificent; everywhere the deep, 
deep snow, and long icicles hanging from the rocks. 
That winter I heard Thackeray lecture on George 
the Third. 

When I came home in the spring of 1856, I was 
sixteen years old. Hoops and heels had both been 
introduced into fashion. My mother had never 
worn heels, but my grandmother Moore, who had 
worn shoes with heels a finger length high when 
she was young, could not walk without heels, so 

42 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

she always got a shoemaker to put some on her 
shoes. I came home, put on hoops, heels, long 
dresses, tucked up my hair and thought that I was 
a young lady. As I was the only child, I had to 
assist in entertaining; for we always had a great 
deal of company. In those days entertaining was 
carried on in a lavish way ; for we had our trained 
family servants to depend upon. Aunt Doshia was 
a splendid cook, there never was a better; Humph- 
rey, a young man, was the butler; the seamstress 
was named Priscilla; the gardner and carriage 
driver was Henry, and his wife Louisa, was the 
laundress; and Bella was my maid. Both Pri- 
scilla and Louisa helped with the cleaning. 

There were a great many young men, students 
and cadets, as well as the older men from Judge 
Brockenbrough's law class, who used to come fre- 
quently to our house. One of these law students 
persisted in coming to church with me every Sun- 
day morning, though I much preferred the young- 
er students and cadets. So that at last, one Sun- 
day morning when we walked into church, there 
was just room in the pew for two. I flourished in 
with my wide hoop, sat down in one end of the pew 

43 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

and turned my back on him. Though my mother 
told me to move up, I would not, and the young 
man had to find a seat across the aisle, to the 
amusement of many of my friends in the gallery. 

When a young girl, I was fond of riding. Ladies 
in those days rode on side saddles, with both feet 
on one side of the horse, with long flowing skirts, 
often nearly reaching the ground. My habit was 
made of black cloth. Down in Eastern Virginia, 
in King William County, where I frequently visit- 
ed, the roads were level and fine. A large party of 
young people would go out riding every morning. 
One morning we were about to start. My cousin 
William Aylett's large horse that no one but 
himself could ride was brought out, and a gentle- 
man from New York City was put upon him, two 
grooms holding him, and when we started they 
let him go — and go he did, tearing along the road 
and out of sight; he went because his horse would 
go, like John Gilpin. After considerable time he 
returned at the same furious speed, rushing by us 
like a cyclone, pale and frightened. The grooms 
at the stable caught the horse, and assisted the 
gentleman off, and he never rode again while with 
us. 

44 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

I rode a great deal at home, often taking long 
rides through the country. I once rode with my 
cousin William A. Anderson, a girl cousin, and 
another young man, from Glenwood my uncle's 
home, away up to Bald Knob, said to be the high- 
est mountain in Virginia, higher than the Peaks of 
Otter. My horse stopped and I could not make 
him go. I looked down and saw a large rattle- 
snake lying across the path, the steep mountain 
side was above and below. I backed my horse 
away and the two young men threw stones at the 
snake, whether they struck it or not I don't know, 
but afterwards there was a great rattling, even the 
trees seemed full of rattles. We waited and after 
awhile we passed on; it seemed as if dozens of 
rattle snakes were rattling, such an all-pervading 
sound it was and so shrill. The mountaineers fear 
other snakes more, the moccasin and the coper- 
head; for the rattlers give warning and cannot 
strike unless coiled. The top of the mountain is 
bare of trees, scrub oaks surrounding it looking 
like apple trees, causing the mountain to be called 
Apple Orchard, or Bald Knob. The decent of a 
mountain is always more trying on a horse than 

45 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

the ascent when it is very steep, as this was. We 
lost our way going back, and when at last we 
reached home we found men about to go in search 
of us. 

At one time my father bought a beautiful coal 
black horse for me, — "A perfect horse for a lady," 
the man said, so I mounted and with my escort 
started out for a ride. We went by the V. M. I. 
parade ground where the cadets were drilling, and 
as we passed a company, they lowered their guns 
with the bayonets on them, then my horse sprang 
over a ditch and sidewalk on to the parade ground, 
he lowered his head, and kicked up, until I felt his 
heels would hit my back. Not succeeding in 
throwing me, he then reared and danced on his 
hind legs, and at last charged the largest body of 
cadets. I managed to stop him before he struck 
them, and turning rode a much subdued horse off 
the parade ground. My escort remarked that he 
was greatly surprised at my being able to stay on 
that horse. I rode this horse several times, then 
my father was afraid for me to ride him longer 
and sold him. One of his tricks was to lie down in 
the first stream he came to. 

46 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Parties of young people used to go to Natural 
Bridge, fourteen miles from Lexington, in stages 
and carriages, having a picnic under the Bridge. 
One bright October day six of us went on horses, 
three young ladies and three gentlemen. After 
spending the day there we waited until the full 
moon rose above the mountains, then mounting 
our horses we rode full speed through the frosty 
air in the moonlight, passing the carriages and 
reaching home long before them, horses and riders 
greatly excited by the exhilarating air. 

One day in the cool weather of the spring I took 
a long ride. My escort said we could come home a 
shorter way by fording South River. We rode into 
the water, my escort leading the way, not knowing 
it was so high. Recent rains had made the current 
very strong, and when I reached mid-stream my 
horse was swept down, and would not swim; we 
were near a dam, and I feared might be carried 
over, but I managed to get back to the ford and 
across the river with great difficulty, and when my 
escort saw me being swept down the river, my 
horse's head just above the water, he was terribly 
frightened. He said afterwards, "Why didn't you 

47 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

scream?" We galloped up the towing path of the 
canal, my clothes and long skirt streaming with 
water, but I suffered no bad effects from the 
wetting. 

I never returned to school after I was sixteen, 
but took private lessons at home. I took music, 
French and drawing from Dr. Ludwig, of Berne, 
Switzerland. In the fall of 1857 my mother and I 
went to a wedding down in King William County. 
In 1858, I went to another wedding in King Will- 
iam County. This time I went alone and was one 
of the bridesmaids. I stayed three weeks and had 
a very gay time, dancing every evening and riding 
horseback all over the country every morning. I 
spent part of the winter of 1858-59 in Richmond 
and part in Washington. Mildred Maben, my 
cousin, went to Washington with me and we stay- 
ed at Brown's Hotel under the care of Governor 
and Mrs. Letcher. Brown's Hotel was the center 
of all Southern society in Washington. We met 
Mrs. Clement C. Clay, who wrote "Belle of the 
Fifties," and Mrs. Chestnut, who wrote "Diary from 
Dixie," and Miss Reedy, who afterwards married 
General Morgan, of Kentucky. While I was there 

48 




Samuel McDowell Mo< 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

I saw General Sam Houston, of Texas, a cousin of 
Governor Letcher, who was then in the Senate of 
the United States. He was a tall, fine looking man, 
and very eloquent in the Senate. Everybody tried 
to hear him speak. General Houston was from my 
home town, Lexington, Virginia, and as a young 
man went to Tennessee. An old uncle of his said, 
as the large party started for Tennessee, that he 
had not much hope of Sam Houston ever being 
anything, as he was so wild. Sam Houston said, 
"Why, uncle, I will come through here on my way 
to Congress." And so he did. He was elected 
Governor of Tennessee and soon after that he was 
married. The night he was married, he found his 
wife was in the most deplorable distress, weeping 
violently. She confessed that she loved another 
man and that her father and mother had made her 
marry him because he was the Governor of Tenn- 
essee. He was so shocked that he fled that night, 
disappeared and went off and joined the Cherokee 
Indians in Georgia. He lived with these Indians 
ten years and after that went to Texas. The girl 
he married got a divorce and married the man she 
loved. Houston joined the army in Texas and 

49 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

fought so bravely that he became an officer. After 
the battle of San Jacinto when the Texans defeat- 
ed the Mexicans, Santa Anna was taken prisoner 
and General Houston protected him against the 
Texans, who wanted to kill him. He was made 
President of the Republic of Texas. When I saw 
General Sam Houston in Washington, he wore a 
ring on each finger and one on his thumb. He said 
that friends had given them to him. 

I went to President Buchanan's reception and 
to many given by the senators and had a very gay 
time in Washington. I met President Buchanan's 
niece, Miss Lane, and also Mrs. Stephen A. Doug- 
las, a most beautiful woman. Mrs. Senator Clay 
had a niece married at St. John's Church and there 
was a reception at the hotel afterwards. The lanc- 
ers had become very fashionable as a dance that 
winter. We only danced square dances, the lanc- 
ers, and cotillions. There was very little round 
dancing. I never danced round dances. We re- 
turned to Richmond and in the spring I came 
home. 

That summer I spent August at the White Sul- 
phur Springs with some relatives and also about 

50 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

two weeks at the Sweet Springs. At the White 
Sulphur they had introduced the German and al- 
ways danced it in the mornings so as not to inter- 
fere with the regular ball in the evenings, as every- 
body did not dance it. I had a very gay time that 
summer. 

The winter of 1859-60 my mother was very ill 
and died June 12, 1860. Before she died she in- 
sisted that my father should take me on a trip 
through the North. So about September my father 
and I went. We traveled all through the North, 
going to New York, Boston, Niagara Falls, and 
down the St. Lawrence to Montreal. In New 
York we saw "The American Cousin" with Jeffer- 
son in the cast. I remember seeing many pictures 
of Lincoln, Bell, Everette, and Breckenridge, who 
were all running for the presidency. 



51 



WAR EXPERIENCES 

Lincoln was elected, and my father was elected 
to the Virginia Convention which met on the first 
of February in Richmond. I went with him. The 
Convention was in session three months, Febru- 
ary, March, and April, 1861. The whole State of 
Virginia was in favor of the Union, except the City 
of Richmond, and the Convention was almost en- 
tirely composed of Union men. There were only 
thirty secessionists in the Convention. South 
Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, which had al- 
ready seceded, sent commissioners to the Conven- 
tion to persuade it to secede. South Carolina sent 
John Preston, a remarkably handsome man and 
such an eloquent speaker. He was one of the Pres- 
tons of Virginia. His two daughters, who had 
just returned from school in Paris, very beautiful 
girls, came with him. Georgia sent Judge Ben- 
ning, and Mr. Anderson came from Alabama, as 
ambassadors to persuade the State of Virginia to 
secede. Each made a speech. Preston's came first. 

52 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

The city of Richmond was almost entirely in favor 
of secession and the secessionists were wild with 
excitement. I even heard many middle aged 
gentlemen say that if Virginia would not secede 
they would go to South Carolina. The Convention 
met in a large music hall, and great crowds of 
ladies and gentlemen attended every day. Excite- 
ment all over the State was intense. Richmond 
was a hot-bed of secession. The speeches of these 
three ambassadors made a great sensation. My 
father, although suffering from a cold, determined 
to resist the torrent, and arose and offered resolu- 
tions and made the first speech in the Convention 
opposing the secession of Virginia. I was present 
only a few feet from where he stood, and I thought 
how grand his white head looked as it towered 
over the surging throng that hissed and yelled and 
groaned because he dared to oppose them. The 
speaker, Mr. Janney, President of the Convention, 
sounded the gavel again and again. When my 
father's speech was done, a member of the Conven- 
tion, Mr. Holcomb, a violent secessionist, arose to 
answer him, and then the galleries cheered and 
yelled, clapped and stormed so that Mr. Janney 

53 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

1 

ordered them cleared. Mr. John Janney was a tall, 
thin old man, with snowy hair and beard, fearless 
and determined. Then the secessionist speaker re- 
fused to speak any more that day. He made an- 
other long speech the next day when the galleries 
were filled. 

The night after my father's speech, a great mob 
paraded the streets of Richmond, with torches, vis- 
iting the hotel where he was staying, yelling, hoot- 
ing, and groaning below his windows. He was 
playing chess at the time, and continued his game 
as if all were quiet. The mob threatened to burn 
my father and Mr. Janney in effigy. Jennings Wise 
made them a speech, begging them to disperse, 
telling them that McDowell Moore was a brave 
man and that everybody knew where he stood. 
Then the mob rushed through the streets down to 
the Capitol and the Governor's Mansion, yelling and 
screaming. "Honest John Letcher," afterwards so 
well known as Virginia's War Governor, was a 
Union man. When the mob filled the garden, John 
Letcher walked out to meet them on the front 
porch, closing the door behind him, and made them 
a speech. Even that wild mob was quieted by his 
courage and boldness. 

54 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

The Convention was composed of such Union 
men as my father, John B. Baldwin, Robert Y. 
Conrad, of Winchester, Alexander Stuart, and 
others. At last, the secessionists found that they 
could do nothing with the Convention. Roger A. 
Pryor, a violent fire-eater and extreme secession- 
ist, went to Charleston, South Carolina, accom- 
panied by an old man named Ruffin, a rabid seces- 
sionist. Pryor was tall and dark like an Indian, 
with long black hair down on his collar. He col- 
lected a crowd of people at Charleston and told 
them in a fiery speech that the only way to make 
Virginia secede was to attack Fort Sumter. The 
next day, the attack was made, old Ruffin firing the 
first gun. Then Lincoln called for troops to invade 
the South, and Virginia seceded. My father did 
not vote for the ordinance, but after it was passed, 
signed it. The same night, carrying banners, trans- 
parencies, and torches, greatly rejoicing crowds pa- 
raded the streets of Richmond. The city was il- 
luminated and cannon were fired at the Capitol 
Square. Governor Letcher got General Smith to 
come to Richmond to be his military adviser. The 
Governor made the nominations, and the Conven- 

55 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

tion confirmed the appointments of officers for the 
army of Virginia. General Robert E. Lee ap- 
peared before the Convention, offering his sword to 
Virginia. My father expressed to me his admira- 
tion of General Lee as he appeared and spoke that 
day. 

There was great solicitude in the Convention as 
to who should be put in charge at Harper's Ferry, 
the gateway to the beautiful Valley of Virginia, the 
land of plenty, which was to feed our armies. My 
father arose and told them that he could tell them 
of a man, who, if he were to defend it, would do so 
at all odds. He then told them that it was Thomas 
J. Jackson, whom he knew intimately as a professor 
at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. My 
father told them something of Jackson's record in 
the Mexican War, and of one incident, when Jack- 
son was ordered up a hill to take some breast- 
works. His commander sent an order for him to re- 
treat, as the firing was too intense for any man to 
stand. Jackson sent back word that he would obey 
the second order after he had obeyed the first. He 
took the works and was promoted on the field. We 
are told that "in the whole army in Mexico, no 

56 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

officer was promoted so often for meritorious con- 
duct or made so great a stride in rank." Jackson 
was put in command at Harper's Ferry, and the 
world knows how he defended the Valley of Vir- 
ginia. 

Jackson left Lexington with the cadets, who be- 
came drill masters for the troops in Richmond. The 
Virginia Military Institute furnished many of the 
officers of the War. About this time, some of the 
young men here in Lexington raised the Rock- 
bridge Artillery. Colonel Williamson had two 
sons in it, Colonel Preston one, and my husband 
and two of his brothers were in it. There were in 
it forty-seven graduates of Washington College, 
fifteen young men from the Episcopal Seminary 
near Alexandria, and many A. M. graduates of the 
University of Virginia. The Rector of the Episco- 
pal Church here, Dr. William N. Pendleton, was a 
graduate of West Point, and he drilled them and 
was their captain. He went with them to Harper's 
Ferry to join Jackson's Brigade. When ordering 
them to fire, Dr. Pendleton would always cry, "Fire, 
boys, and the Lord have mercy on their souls." 
David E. Moore fired the first gun in the Valley. 

57 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Nearly all of our men in this part of the country 
were in the Stonewall Brigade. 

Dr. Junkin, the President of Washington Col- 
lege, was from Philadelphia, and was a very strong 
Union man. Some of the students tied a secession 
flag to the statue of Washington that stands at the 
highest point on the College building. Dr. Junkin 
had it taken down at once. After the State of Vir- 
ginia had seceded, the students put it up again, 
and the professors united and backed the students 
up, and would not allow Dr. Junkin to have it re- 
moved. Then Dr. Junkin make his preparations to 
leave, and with his family went back to Philadel- 
phia. He took one daughter with him and his 
niece, but he left behind his oldest daughter, Mrs. 
Preston, and two sons who were Presbyterian 
preachers, and a nephew. One of his sons, William 
F. Junkin, raised a company of which he was cap- 
tain. His nephew was in the Confederate army 
also, and was taken prisoner. 

The students at Washington College formed a 
company and called it the Liberty Hall Volunteers. 
The ladies of the town made them a beautiful silk 
flag and presented it to them. Old Dr. White 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

prayed over them and blessed them. Some of the 
professors went as officers, and they joined Jackson 
at Harper's Ferry. 

The 21st of July, 1861, the battle of Manassas 
was fought. We had no railroads or telegraph here 
before the War, but all day long on the 21st, we 
could hear the guns at Manassas. I think it was 
one hundred and fifty miles away. In the evening 
many of the country people came to town to ask 
if we had heard where the battle was. Our only 
communication was the great, big, lumbering stage 
that came in about twelve or one o'clock at night. 
There was a crowd of citizens gathered around it 
on its first arrival after the battle to hear the news 
from the people in the stage. Colonel Cameron was 
in the crowd. He had five sons in the army. As a 
young man climbed out of the stage, with two 
guns in his hands, one went off and shot three men. 
Colonel Cameron fell dead, and Willie McCIung, a 
boy of sixteen, had part of his skull shot oft. He 
lived a week. Another young man was wounded 
in the hand. This was a terrible shock to the com- 
munity. After the excitement subsided we began 
to hear news of the battle. One of the first things 

59 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

we heard was that our College Company was lying 
back of the Rockbridge Artillery and acting as their 
support. A shell came over and killed four of these 
College boys, and a number of young men from the 
county were killed and a number wounded. Gen- 
eral Pendleton's son, Sandie Pendleton, was on 
Jackson's staff. He was a splendid young fellow, 
brave and true, a brilliant young man, and very 
kind. After every battle, he would write a letter 
and send it by a courier, telling of all the Lexington 
boys, whether safe or otherwise. One young man 
was mortally wounded and died on the battle field. 
He sent a message to his mother, saying that he 
was afraid that he had given her a great deal of 
trouble, but that he had died with his face to the 
enemy. A young cousin of mine who was in the 
College Company, died of brain fever after the bat- 
tle. My cousin, William A. Anderson, was in the 
College Company, too. In the charge he was shot 
through the knee. We had no nurses and few sur- 
geons, and he was put in a box car with a lot of 
other wounded men, and was sent down to Rich- 
mond. When he reached Richmond his leg was 
swollen up as large as his body. He was taken to 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

the home of his uncle, General Joseph R. Ander- 
son, and was nursed there for many months, but 
he was left a cripple for life. 

That summer of 1861, a large number of students 
from the University of Virginia came to Lexington 
to be drilled at the Virginia Military Institute for 
officers. I had two young ladies from Charlottes- 
ville staying with me and one of my cousins. Our 
house was very near the Institute, and it was head- 
quarters for many of the young men, and we four 
ladies had a very gay time that summer, in spite of 
the war. One day we had a picnic at the Natural 
Bridge. We hired a large old stage coach that held 
nine people, and with several other carriages, we 
drove out and had our picnic under the Bridge. 
So many of those fine young men who were here 
that summer were killed during the War. And 
then, we hardly realized that the war was going on. 

In 1863 I was on a visit with friends in Charlott- 
esville when the battle of New Market took place. 
I saw an entire division of our troops come through 
Charlottesville. Many of the soldiers were almost 
barefooted, and all were poorly clothed. They were 
very jolly in spite of this. An old gentleman wear- 

61 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

ing a stove pipe hat (silk dress hat), stood at his 
front gate to see them pass. As the soldiers passed 
by, the whole line cheered and guyed and laughed 
at the old gentleman and his hat, telling him to 
come out of the keg, to come out of that pipe, etc. 
General Fitz Lee was stationed at Charlottesville 
then. He gave a ball one night and soon after re- 
ceived a letter from his uncle, General Robert E. 
Lee, reproving him and telling him that it was no 
time for festivities. When I returned home from 
Charlottesville, as we reached Staunton, I heard of 
the battle of New Market, and that our Virginia 
Military Institute boys, just young fellows, were in 
the fight and saved the day. It was a most gallant 
fight, and six or eight of the cadets were killed. 
One of them, a cousin of mine, young McDowell, 
had dined with us just before I left home. After 
I reached home the cadets and officers came back. 
One of the officers, who had been wounded, stayed 
at our house. He had had part of his skull shot 
off. This had affected his brain, and he could not 
remember anything, could not read or write, and 
spoke very brokenly, like a Frenchman. I used to 
tie his head up in one of my father's large white 

62 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

handkerchiefs. When we heard that the Yankees 
were coming and were going to burn the Institute, 
he was afraid that he would be taken prisoner and 
left. I told him that I would pass him off as my 
French cook. He finally recovered. The battle of 
New Market, of course, was a great victory. A 
very popular saying at that time was, that, "While 
we were tearing up the railroad, the Yankees were 
tearing down the turnpike." 

In the summer there was a meeting of the Con- 
vention in Richmond, and my father went. In Feb- 
ruary, 1862, I went with my father and a party to 
Richmond to see Jeff Davis inaugurated President 
of the Confederacy. My father went on to Georgia. 
I stayed at the Exchange Hotel with some friends. 
Agnes Reid and Mattie Jordan, from Lexington 
were in the party. It was raining the day of the 
inauguration, and we took a carriage to go to see 
it. Mr. Davis had never been popular, and a great 
many people, especially in Virginia, objected to his 
being made President. My father never admired 
him, but said his state papers were fine. From the 
very first, General Lee was the idol of the South. 
My father came back from Georgia, called for me, 
and we returned home. 

63 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

It was in 1863, after the battle of New Market, 
that the Yankees came to Lexington. General 
Grant found that the Valley of Virginia was feed- 
ing Lee's army, so Sheridan was ordered to destroy 
all the crops and provisions in the Shenandoah Val- 
ley from Staunton to Harper's Ferry. Sheridan not 
only destroyed the crops and provisions, but burned 
nearly all the dwelling houses as well, turning wo- 
men and children out of their homes. In one 
county he burned sixty dwelling houses. David 
Hunter was ordered to come through this part of 
the Valley and to destroy the crops and provisions. 
On his way, one of his drunken soldiers tried to 
get into the room of a gentleman's invalid daughter. 
The gentleman, struggling to protect his daughter, 
was nearly overpowered, but his old colored cook, 
seeing the plight which her master was in, promptly 
brought him an axe, and with it he killed the sol- 
dier. Hunter hung the man for this deed. 

When the Yankees reached the hills across the 
river from our little town, they began to shell the 
village. Forty houses in this town were struck. 
The Virginia Military Institute was in session at 
the time, and the cadets marched out and joined 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Breckenridge's army at Lynchburg. Before they 
left, they brought their trunks and many of the In- 
stitute stores over to our house for safe-keeping. 
Many of the officers' families also brought their 
goods and clothes to our house, until large though 
it was, it was soon overflowing with all these 
things. Someone burned the covered bridge over 
the river, thinking to stop the troops, but they sim- 
ply forded the river and came on. Colonel William- 
son's three daughters (their mother was dead), and 
all their servants, came to stay at our house. They 
brought as many of their clothes and valuables as 
they could possibly carry. 

The next morning the Yankees marched in and 
encamped all around the town. All the lots back of 
our house were filled with their tents. The soldiers 
were turned loose on the town and took anything 
they wanted, regardless of the people. We all 
buried our silver, and in many cases it remained 
buried throughout the war. Some people had 
guards, and my father, who was an old man, re- 
quested a guard for our house. Until then I had 
stood at the back door of the house on the porch, 
and kept the soldiers back, telling them that I ex- 

65 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

pected them to behave as gentlemen. A great many 
of them were Germans, and could not speak Eng- 
lish. One came rushing and screaming on the 
porch and another told him that he must behave, 
as there was a real lady in that house. I stood for 
hours in the door keeping them back. One of the 
Williamson girls said that it was a shame for me 
to have to stand there by myself, (I was only 
twenty-three years old), and face the dreadful 
creatures, so she came down to stay with me, but 
the first man who made a face at her, she fled up- 
stairs and would not come down any more. 

The Yankees burned the barracks and all the 
Institute houses, except the Superintendent's 
house. General Smith's daughter was extremely 
ill and Mrs. Smith went to Hunter and asked him 
to spare her house as her daughter's life was in 
danger. This was the only house at the Institute 
that was saved, except the gate-keeper's lodge. 
Three hundred barrels of rosin, which was used in 
making the gas for the Institute, and which were 
stored just behind the barracks, were burned when 
the barracks were burned. The intense black 
smoke and red fire were seen for miles and miles 

66 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

in the country. Governor Letcher's wife was sit- 
ting in her bedroom with her baby in her arms 
when one of Hunter's officers opened her door and 
told her that the house was on fire and that she 
had better leave, but he told her that she could 
not take anything out with her. She ran to the 
bureau to get some clothes for her baby. The of- 
ficer poured camphine in the drawer and made it 
blaze up in her face, so she had to leave without 
even a change of clothes for her infant. 

We had two barrels of flour hidden in a closet 
under the stairs. The Yankees did not leave any 
food untouched; in many cases there was not a 
grain of food left in the house. We succeeded in 
keeping our two barrels of flour and when the 
Yankees left I sent buckets of it around to the 
people who did not have anything to eat. 

While the enemy was here the servants were 
afraid to sleep out in the servant houses in the 
yard, so they came in the house and slept in the 
halls. None of us undressed or went regularly to 
bed while the Northren troops were here. One 
day in passing through the hall, I met one of our 
little negro servant girls, about six years old. She 

67 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

was a child I always thought did not have very 
much sense. She stopped me and said, "Dem Yan- 
kees axe me if we got any Institute things in de 
house, and I say no, we aint got nothing." I could 
not help feeling badly about the child's lying that 
way, when I had tried so hard to teach her to tell 
the truth. All the sheep and cattle in the whole 
country round were killed. As the hills were cov- 
ered with the dead carcasses, we were afraid that 
it would make the town unhealthy, but it did not. 
One night one of the Williamson servants came up 
stairs to get a candle from me. We had only can- 
dles to burn. My father hearing the noise, thought 
one of the Yankee soldiers had gotten in the house. 
He came out and Dorcus seeing him from the stairs 
became frightened thinking that he was a Yankee, 
and holding the candle high over her head cried, 
"Officer, here, officer here." She knew how dread- 
fully afraid the Yankee privates were of their of- 
ficers. Of course, this commotion awakened every- 
body in the house. The Yankees took the bronze 
statue of Washington that stood in front of the In- 
stitute. This was returned from Wheeling after the 
War. There was a drawer filled with bonds in our 

68 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

house, hidden somewhere, which they got hold of. 
After the War, a man from Ohio wrote my father 
telling him that if he would send him $500 he would 
return the bonds. My father fortunately had a 
friend in Congress from West Virginia, and he re- 
covered the bonds without paying the $500. Guards 
were sent around to search all the houses for 
arms. At Mrs. Compton's, as the officer was going 
through the house, Miss Lizzie was leading the 
way upstairs, when suddenly a string broke and a 
shower of spoons and forks came raining down 
the steps from under her hoops. The officer was 
greatly amused, and kindly helped her pick them 
up and gave them back to her. Hoops served a 
great purpose in helping the ladies hide their 
special treasures. One friend of mine coming out 
from Washington during the War, brought a pair 
of cavalry boots tied up under her hoops, and also 
a hat. 

When the Yankees left Lexington, at the end of 
three days, many of the younger negroes went 
with them. We were left without anything to 
eat except a little fried bacon and bread. My 
father became ill from constantly eating this. One 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

morning coming down the stairs, I found a nice 
fat partridge had flown into the hall. I ran and 
closed the doors as quickly as I could and had the 
servant man come and catch it. One of my 
friends, a young lady, was very superstitious and 
dreadfully frightened by my finding a bird in the 
house. She wanted me to let it go, but I told 
her that it was a special Providence. Old Aunt 
Doshia, our cook, made an excellent broth of the 
bird and broiled it for my father, and I really 
think that it saved his life. 

That fall, we had the meeting of the Presbyter- 
ian Synod here in Lexington. They had been ap- 
pointed to meet here before the Yankees came 
and when the country was in a prosperous con- 
dition. Now all was changed, and we had scarcely 
anything at all. We had even cut up our carpets 
into lengths and sent them to the camps for the 
soldiers to sleep on. We had sent all the bed 
clothes and everything that we could possibly 
spare from our houses to the hospitals. However, 
we scoured the country round for lamb and mutton 
and anything we could get to eat. A family of 
our relatives, who lived some distance in the 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

country, came to stay with us and brought a good 
many provisions with them.. The preachers had 
the proverbial appetites, so we laughed and said, 
"What the Yankees left, the preachers took." 

During the War, my father, his niece, Mrs. Nel- 
son, and I, went to the Alleghany Springs near 
Christiansburg. We left Lexington at two o'clock 
P. M. in the stage and reached Bonsacks at nine 
the next morning, traveling all night in the lumber- 
ing old coach. We breakfasted at Bonsacks with 
Rucker, the celebrated Yankee spy, who had been 
taken prisoner. We went on to Alleghany Springs 
that day. 

The winter of 1864 we had a great many refugees 
in Lexington. They came here thinking it a safe 
place. Several families came from Winchester, 
among them Mr. Lloyd Logan and his family. He 
had a very fine large house in Winchester. One of 
the Yankee generals decided to stay there himself, 
so the Logans had to leave and stay with friends. 
When Jackson came down the Valley, driving the 
Yankees before him, he captured the army at 
Harper's Ferry, and found Mr. Logan's hand- 
some piano, silver, and other goods, had been ship- 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

ped north by this Yankee general. Jackson, of 
course, returned them to their owner. Then Mr. 
Logan moved up to Lexington, thinking this a 
safer place than Winchester. There was not much 
fighting that winter. General Payne's Cavalry 
was wintering in the County. About February 
Mr. Logan rented the Blue Hotel and gave a large 
supper party there. There was a whole roast pig 
at the foot of the table, and ducks, chickens, and 
lamb. There were all kinds of elegant meats, but 
very few sweets. It was a grand supper with every- 
body seated at a long table in the hotel dining- 
room. We had buckwheat cakes, sorghum mo- 
lasses, and rye coffee. General Payne took me in 
to supper. After the supper, they cleared away 
the tables and we had dancing. 

Shortly after this great supper, my Cousin Belle, 
and I went down to Richmond to visit friends. We 
left Lexington in one of the old lumbering stages, 
which held nine people. There were three ladies 
on the back seat, strapped in. The gentlemen 
were in front. We had to cross the river on the 
ferryboat, as the bridge had been burned. It was 
very cold winter weather, and they had put straw 

72 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

in the bottom of the stage to keep our feet warm, 
and also hot bricks. As we went rumbling along 
with great noise and rattling of the old stage, we 
ladies began to smell something burning. The 
hot bricks had set the straw on fire. As we were 
strapped in on the back seat, we were in great dan- 
ger, so I said quietly to one of the gentlemen, 
"Please stop the stage." He said, "Oh, no, we 
have not time to stop." I replied, "Well, you had 
better stop, the stage is on fire." That brought a 
different response, some of the gentlemen even 
jumping out before the stage could be stopped. I 
carried a large hat box of provisions with me, a big 
jug of molasses, butter, etc. The people in Rich- 
mond had few provisions and little to eat, and 
still they were giving parties and dances and en- 
joying themselves. 

There was a great deal of complaining about Mr. 
Davis, Congress, etc., etc., saying that if General 
Lee were given control, he would do something. 
Davis removed Joseph E. Johnston from command 
in the West, August 17, 1864, and the Northern 
people said that that was the death blow of the 
Confederacy. February 9, 1865, Lee was made gen- 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

eralissimo and he restored Joseph E. Johnston to 
the command of the army in the West. 

My father had written to me at Richmond that 
I had better come home, as he thought the War 
was about over. So I started with a party — my 
cousin, Belle, her brother-in-law, Docton William 
F. Junkin, old Doctor Archibald Graham, and his 
wife, and a young married lady who was trying to 
get to Staunton, and five or six gentlemen. We 
found the cars crowded. There were a great many 
exchanged prisoners sitting on the roofs of the 
cars, so many that they had to put props under 
the roofs to help hold them up. The Chesapeake 
and Ohio R. R. had been partly destroyed and so 
we came up by Highbridge and Farmville. When 
we reached Burksville, we had to stop there twelve 
hours. It was very cold, and they made a fire in 
a cabin for us. The next day we went on to Lynch- 
burg. There we expected to take the canal up to 
Lexington, but the canal was broken and could not 
be used. Lynchburg is only forty miles from Lex- 
ington, and some of the younger men walked. We 
could not get any horses, as nearly all of them had 
been taken for the army. Then we heard that if 

74 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

we went on to Salem there was a stage from there 
that went three times a week to Lexington. So 
we got on the train and went on to Salem. When 
we reached there, we found that all the seats on 
the stage had been engaged for three weeks. We 
stopped at the little hotel there for a week, and 
lived on bread and fried bacon. Doctor Junkin 
borrowed a horse and buggy from a brother preach- 
er, and took Belle down to Buchanan, where her 
uncle, Colonel John T. Anderson lived, and he 
sent her on her way home from there. She had to 
leave her trunk with us. After great difficulty, 
we found that we could hire a common road wagon, 
without any springs, and two old Confederate 
horses, from a farmer nearby. They were two bad 
looking old horses. We put all the trunks in the 
wagon and with our shawls over our heads, for it 
was very cold weather, we seated ourselves on 
the round topped trunks, and began the journey. 
There was a good macadam road from Salem to 
Buchanan, and so we got on pretty well the first 
day. When we got to Buchanan we drove up to 
the hotel, but the man told us that he could take 
us in to sleep, but that he could not give us any- 

75 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

thing to eat. This was a blow to us, as we had 
had nothing to eat all day. I remembered that my 
mother had a relative living near the hotel, and so 
I went to her house. She was very much surprised 
to see me and wondered where I had come from. 
When I arrived they were just bringing in the most 
delicious supper and the house was delightfully 
warm and comfortable. I told her about the party 
at the hotel and she sent a large tray over to them. 
I went to bed in a large old fashioned tester bed 
with a feather bed on it, which I found most ac- 
ceptable after my ride on the trunks. The next 
morning my cousin sent over a tray of breakfast 
to the party at the hotel, and gave us an elegant 
lunch to take with us. The road from Buchanan 
to Lexington was in the most deplorable condition 
— great holes and ruts in it. With our poor old 
horses we had to drive very slowly, and the young- 
er people had to walk up all the hills. An old lady 
was the only one who stayed on the wagon. Pres- 
ently, as we were crossing an enormous mud hole, 
one of our old horses fell and we thought that he 
was dead. We gathered around him and lifted 
him up and fortunately revived the old horse, and 

76 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

we went on. At last, as we went rumbling along, 
slowly and with great care, one of the wheels came 
off. We did not reach Lexington until ten o'clock 
at night. My father, who had not heard from me 
for a week or two, was greatly relieved to see me. 

General Lee surrendered and the soldiers began 
coming in. We were awfully distressed. When we 
told Aunt Doshia that she was free, she informed 
us that indeed she was no "free nigger,'* and that 
the Yankees had nothing to do with her, and that 
master was never going to get rid of her. Hum- 
phrey had gone off with the Yankees and he sent 
word by one of the other servants that he would 
not have left but that Henry, the coachman, had 
treated him badly. During the War Henry and our 
wagon and horses had been impressed into service 
in West Virginia, and Henry was taken ill out 
there, and sent word to my father, and my father 
went after him. Henry was extremely ill after 
this with typhoid pneumonia. 

One very cold winter Aunt Doshia who had 
got too old to cook, informed me that she was go- 
ing to sleep in my room. I was very much shocked 
at this, but as she generally did as she pleased, I 

77 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

made ready to receive her. I had a very large bed- 
room with a dressing room attached. I had a 
couch fixed up in the corner by the fire for Aunt 
Doshia and here she slept the entire winter. In- 
stead of being in the way, she was the greatest 
comfort; for she always kept the open wood fire 
going. We had a great deal of company in the 
evenings and when I would go to my room I would 
find Aunt Doshia with a bright fire, ready to en- 
tertain me.* One night the old woman told me 
that somebody had told her that I was going to 
marry an old widower. She was highly indignant 
and said that I had one father and did not need 
another. Sometime after this I was leaving for 
Richmond, and she was in such distress she follow- 
ed me around weeping. This worried me and I 
told her not to act like this, that I was not going 
to stay very long and that she would be taken care 
of if she was sick. She said, "La, child, I aint 
'fraid of that, but I might die while you is gone and 



*She was a brown skinned "ginger cake" color, always 
neat and clean, dressed in black with white apron and 
white handkerchief around her neck, but her turban was 
always made of a bright red handkerchief. I offered to 
give her white handkerchiefs for her head, but she said, 
"No, chile, that's for dead people." 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

nobody will take care of my funeral like yous will." 
She had often told me just how she wanted her 
funeral, and had put away an old silk dress that 
my mother had given her that she wanted to be 
buried in. When I came back from Richmond and 
arrived home in the middle of the night, she was 
the first person to meet me. It was a gratification 
to me to know that, when she did die, she had a 
big funeral. 

General Lee was invited by the Board of Trus- 
tees of Washington College to be its President, 
and Judge Brockenbrough, who was Rector of 
the Board of Trustees, was appointed to go down 
to where General Lee was living and deliver the 
invitation. General Lee was then living in Cum- 
berland County where Mrs. Cocke had offered 
him a place of hers, and where he had retired from 
Richmond with his family. Judge Brockenbrough 
told the Board that he really did not have clothes 
suitable to go to visit General Lee. Mr. Hugh Bar- 
clay, a member of the Board, had a handsome suit 
of broadcloth and he loaned it to Judge Brocken- 
brough, who, properly dressed, went down to in- 
vite General Lee to come to Lexington. General 

79 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Lee accepted the invitation, and that fall he came 
riding on Traveller up to Lexington to take the 
position of President of Washington College. Be- 
fore he came, the ladies of the town had done 
everything they could to fix up the house for him, 
and they had arranged everything as well as they 
could. General Lee used to tell about the first 
night he slept in Lexington. The ladies had put 
ruffled pillow cases on the bed and he said that 
he was afraid to turn over for fear of rumpling 
the ruffles. When General Lee came we had two 
regiments of Yankee soldiers stationed here to 
"keep us straight." General Lee had to appear 
before an officer. One of the professors accompan- 
ied him and the professor asked General Lee af- 
terward how he could be so polite to the officer 
when the officer had been so rude to him. General 
Lee replied, "I owe it to myself as a gentleman." 
Everybody here fairly worshipped General Lee and 
idolized him. After a while his family joined him 
here. He would often take rides through the coun- 
try on Traveller. One day out on the Brushy 
Hills he met a man, an old soldier, who recognized 
him, and stopping him said, "General Lee, will 

80 



i 







MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

you shake hands with me?" "Certainly," replied 
General Lee. Then the man drew back and said, 
"Now, I am going to give three cheers for you." 
General Lee said, "Oh, no." But the man insisted, 
and out there in the woods he gave three cheers 
as loud as he could. General Lee used to ride 
often with his daughter Mildred. As they would 
ride through the country, the children would run 
screaming, "Here comes General Lee, here comes 
General Lee." Genral Lee asked them one day 
how they knew him, and they replied that they 
had pictures of him. He was the noblest looking 
man I have ever seen. None of his portraits do 
him justice. His manners, dress, and everything 
about him were perfection. My father became ill 
one spring and every morning General Lee came 
and inquired of me how he was. He had only 
been in Lexington a very short time before he 
seemed to know everyboy, especially the children. 
Every child would run out to speak to him. The 
country people would send him the finest turkeys, 
ducks, etc., that they raised on their farms, for 
they all loved him. 

An old lady of most doleful countenance, never 
81 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

known to smile, was having her portrait painted, 
and the artist, a young man calling on General 
Lee, was asked how he was getting on with the 
portrait? He said the family did not like it, they 
thought the expression was not bright and ani- 
mated enough. General Lee with a twinkle in his 
eye, said, "Well, Captain, did it ever strike you 
that Mrs. N. had a very jolly face?" A cousin of 
mine met General Lee one day and he told her to 
tell me not to marry a certain young man, that 
he was too small a man for me, and suggested 
two others he thought would be better. 

The students began coming in very fast to the 
College from all parts of the South to be under 
General Lee. A great many of the Southern peo- 
ple wanted to build General Lee a home. When 
they told him of this, he wrote a letter declining, 
and said that he could not accept anything like that 
from them, but if they chose to build a president's 
house for the College, he would live in it during 
his lifetime. After that, the reconstruction days 
came, and the Southern people had no money, so 
they were not able to raise the money for the 
house. When the president's house was finally 

82 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

built, the College paid for it from its own funds 
and it cost $20,000. General Lee and his son, 
Custis, planned it and had it built. When General 
Lee's health failed, the Trustees of the College 
had a meeting and offered him the house for him- 
self and family always. General Lee again de- 
clined it, saying that his children could take care 
of their mother and that the house should always 
be the president's. One day I was calling on 
Mrs. Lee. This was after General Lee's death. 
The trustees had offered the presidency of the 
College to General Custis Lee, who was a professor 
at the Virginia Military Institute. I said that I 
hoped that General Custis would take the place, 
and Mrs. Lee said that she hoped so too, but that 
he did not feel that he was equal to it, but she 
thought that he was. She also remarked, that un- 
less Custis did take the place, she would not think 
of living in that house, as it ought always to be 
the president's house. However, Custis did accept 
the presidency. General Lee only lived five years 
in Lexington. The spring before he died, he and 
one of his daughters took a trip to Florida. He had 
a perfect ovation all along the way. People would 

83 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

collect at the railroad stations just to catch a 
glimpse of him. 

During the War, Governor Letcher gave Colonel 
Smith the title of General, and then the other pro- 
fessors were made Colonels. After the new bar- 
racks and the professors' houses were built, Gen- 
eral Smith had the old superintendent's house pull- 
ed down and then put up a much larger and hand- 
somer building for the superintendent further back 
from the street, but all were burned by Hunter, 
except, as I have said before, the Superintendent's 
house and the gate-keeper's lodge. Afterwards the 
cadets and officers all went to Richmond and car- 
ried on the school at the Alms House there. This 
was during the last winter of the War. After the 
War General Smith began the school here again 
with fifteen cadets, and they recited in the offices 
of the superintendent's house and boarded in the 
town. Of course, later on many more cadets came 
in and General Smith, in order to help rebuild the 
barracks, made each of the professors give up a 
part of his salary. Years afterwards the Legis- 
lature repaid them for all the salary that they had 
given up for this cause. General Shipp was Com- 

84 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

mandant at the time, and he advanced the money 
to build the house he was to occupy as Command- 
ant. 

Colonel Williamson, and Colonel Gilham were 
among the first professors at the Institute. The 
Williamsons were my dear friends. The Colonel 
had three daughters and two sons. They lost their 
mother just before I lost mine. Colonel William- 
son married again, a lovely sweet woman, and she 
had one son, who is now a distinguished man. The 
old Colonel was honest, true, and brave, and all of 
his descendants have inherited these qualities. 
The last of his first wife's children, Olympia, beau- 
tiful and bright, has just passed away, July, 1919. 
Some of the other professors were Colonel Thomas 
M. Semmes, Captain John M. Brooke, General G. 
W. C. Lee, eldest son of General Lee, and Commo- 
dore Matthew F. Maury. Commodore Maury was 
a most agreeable man, and his charming family 
were very much liked. 

General Smith had a store and paid the profess- 
ors in dry goods and groceries, and in that way he 
added to the fund for rebuilding the barracks, mess- 
hall, etc. Many of the cadets paid their bills, but 

85 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

many did not, which left the Institute with a very 
heavy debt, though there were at least 350 cadets 
at one time. General Smith got the Institute in 
good condition and all the buildings finished, and 
everything was very prosperous, when the read- 
justee or repudiators of the State debt appeared, 
and gave General Smith a great deal of unneces- 
sary trouble, nearly ruining the Institute. General 
Smith devoted fifty years of his life to the In- 
stitute. He had many trials, and in his last days 
the Board of Visitors called him to account for 
bad management and extravagance when he had 
done all that mortal man could do to make the 
school a success. 

Colonel Preston owned his own house in the 
village. At that time there were no houses be- 
tween the two institutions, except our house, and 
my father let General Williamson have a lot on 
which he and his son, Thomas, built a house them- 
selves. They did not have much money, so built 
three rooms in a row which made it look like a 
tenpin alley. As time went on and the Colonel 
had a little money he would add another room, the 
first one added being across one end of the house 

86 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

making a parlor, and later he added a front porch, 
and then other rooms until he got enough room for 
his large family of children and grandchildren, 
and I never saw a happier family. 

General Pendleton, Rector of the Episcopal 
Church in Lexington, went in the War as a Captain 
of the Rockbridge Artillery. He was promoted 
and came out of the War a Brigadier General. At 
the close of the War he returned to his Church and 
in conducting the services would not pray for the 
President of the United States. One Sunday he 
said things not pleasant to the United States of- 
ficers who were in the Church, so after service 
they arrested him and put him on parole and 
closed the church for several months. His only 
son, Sandie, a splendid young man on Stonewall 
Jackson's staff, was killed very near the close of 
the War. He had taken part in many battles. Gen- 
eral Pendleton was a very handsome man and 
bore a striking resemblance to General Lee. 

In October, 1870, I went to Richmond. I left 
Lexington for Lynchburg on a canal boat. We had 
no railroads at that time and it took us all night 
to reach Lynchburg, as the water was so low in 

87 



ME MORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

_ j 

the canal that we stuck on a sandbar. There were 
twenty-one locks in the canal in twenty miles. As 
we arrived in Lynchburg in the morning, having 
taken all night to go forty miles, I saw the train 
that we expected to take for Richmond, just leav- 
ing. I called out to everybody to come on deck 
so that when the train crew would see what a 
crowd there was they would come back for us, 
which they did. My cousins, Mr. Alexander 
Bruce's family, Dr. T. L. Preston's family, and Dr. 
Junkin's family, had been spending the summer in 
Lexington. We who were going on to Richmond 
ran and got in the cars quickly and went on to that 
city. That was the last boat and the last train for 
several weeks. Tremendous rains began in the 
mountains; the canal and dams were almost de- 
stroyed; railroads and bridges were washed away 
by a great flood which came rushing down the 
river. Not a drop of rain fell in Richmond, but 
telegrams from Lynchburg warned them that the 
flood was coming. The lower part of the city was 
flooded and I saw people climbing out of second 
story windows into boats. I was in Richmond for 
a cousin's wedding, and while I was away, General 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Robert E. Lee died on the 12th of October, 1870. 
In the fall merchants and others were in the habit 
of having their goods brought up to Lexington in 
boats on the canal, and there was great destruc- 
tion, the banks of the canal being strewn with fur- 
niture and all kinds of goods. A handsome casket 
for General Lee was found floating on the river. 
The covered bridge over North River at Lexington 
was swept down the river. It struck and smashed a 
large warehouse full of goods and carried every- 
thing before it down the stream. 

We young people in Lexington used to have 
boating parties on the river, and sometimes we 
went by moonlight. There was a high dam about 
a mile from the covered bridge, "at the point," 
and we had a fine stretch of water to row on. One 
very cold winter we had a sheet of very thick ice 
for a long time, which was unusual here, for some- 
times for three or four winters the river does not 
freeze at all, and every day a great many persons 
went down to the river to skate; students and 
cadets, and many young ladies learned how to 
skate. Mary Lee was spending the winter here 
with her mother, and she used to go every day and 

89 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

sometimes all day long. Crowds of town people 
who did not take part in the skating would go 
down to look on. 

Mrs. Lee was a great sufferer from rheumatism 
and was helpless many years before she came here. 
She lived three years after General Lee died, and 
her daughter Agnes died just three weeks before 
her mother did. Mrs. Lee was a very interesting 
and intelligent woman, as were also her daughters. 

On the 17th of September, 1875, my father died. 
I spent the winter in Richmond, then went to 
Charlottesville, and then spent the month of May 
at "Berry Hill," Mr. Alexander Bruce's home in 
Halifax county. In 1876 I went to the Centennial 
Exposition in Philadelphia. The rest of the sum- 
mer I spent at Capon Springs. 



90 



MY FIRST TRIP TO EUROPE 

On October 11, 1876, I sailed for Europe. We 
left New York in the JSothina, Cunard Line, and 
reached Liverpool October 21st, after a rough voy- 
age and ten days' seasickness. We stayed at the 
Adelphia Hotel until Monday, the 23rd. I was too 
ill to notice anything very much and I thought I 
should die on the way to London, I was in such 
an exhausted condition. When I looked out of 
the car window on the bright green fields and the 
sheep feeding, I repeated over and over again to 
myself, "The Lord is my shepherd, * * * 
Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the 
shadow of death, I will fear no evil. * * *." 
Oh, what a comfort that Psalm was to me when I 
felt so desolate and dying in a foreign land. 

We reached London in a fog, the rain pattering 
down, and the lady we expected to meet us was no- 
where to be seen. We went to the Euston Hotel 
and remained there two nights. The servants 
were neat and obliging, but the rooms although 

91 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

neat and nicely furnished seemed damp and cheer- 
less with only candles to light them. We went 
from there to Miss Moore's boarding house, 21 A, 
Hanover Square, and I soon was established on a 
lounge in a comfortable room with a bright fire, 
looking out on the dark houses and tall chimneys 
which seemed to be packed in not very clean wool, 
— indeed the fog had exactly the appearance of 
dirty wool. I was only well enough to drive out 
once through Hyde Park, which was lovely, green 
and bright in the pale sunlight. The houses and 
streets were very handsome, but all looked dark 
and damp. The carriages were, very many of 
them, different from ours in America. I drove in 
a funny little buggy with the driver perched up 
behind, the reins going over our heads to the un- 
seen driver. This was a Hansom cab, afterwards 
common in America. 

I remained in London until November 3rd, then 
went to Dover, where I stayed all night at the 
Harp Hotel, very good, but like everything else 
in England, seemed damp to me. I crossed the 
Channel November 4th, and took the train for 
Brussels. The country was green, but the houses 

92 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

and cottages are not like ours. Soon the wind- 
mills began to appear on the hill tops, like giants 
stretching their long arms up against the sky. We 
reached Brussels at ten or eleven o'clock at night. 
We were a party of five ladies. Our leader spoke 
in French to some men, asking them where the 
Hotel Windsor was. She had the baggage put on 
a cart, four men took hold of it and started off at 
a rapid pace, our leading lady telling us to follow, 
as the hotel was just around the corner. We fol- 
lowed the baggage to the corner and past a great 
many other corners, our baggage getting further 
and further ahead of us; we breathless, tearing af- 
ter, as fast as our strength would allow; our leader, 
a strong English woman, keeping in front, while 
the rest of us struggled along, I bringing up the 
rear, weak and faint. The baggage, men, and all 
disappeared entirely from our view, and we five 
lone females were left lamenting in the almost de- 
serted streets of the first really foreign city we 
had ever been in, for in England, of course, we 
felt more at home among English speaking people. 
We looked in vain for a carriage, and when we 
stopped to inquire our way at a shop which was 

93 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

lighted at that late hour, we could make none of 
the people understand us; so we again took up the 
line of march and soon encountered a policeman, 
upon whom we five unprotected females immediate- 
ly pounced. We explained in all languages known 
to us that we wished to go to the Hotel Windsor. 
He pointed out the direction, and said he would 
show us the way, at least we understood him to 
say so, and when he started off we all frantically 
followed, but he distanced all pursuers and like the 
baggage, disappeared from view, leaving us strug- 
gling up a steep, dark, narrow, old street, faint 
and weary. We continued on in the direction 
which had been pointed out to us, and soon dis- 
covered another policeman. We not only spoke to 
him, but laid hold of him, our Englishwoman tak- 
ing his arm, and calling on us to follow, made him 
show us the way. We weaker mortals, panting 
and stumbling along, sometimes losing sight of our 
leaders entirely, sometimes catching a glimpse of 
them standing waiting for a moment while we 
toiled up the steep streets, until at last we beheld 
our beloved long lost trunks on the cart, standing 
in front of the Hotel Windsor, while proprietor, 

94 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

family, waiters, and baggagemen stood around them 
wondering what had become of the owners. We 
were soon comfortable in the hotel, which was a 
good one, low priced, and in an excellent situation 
in the higher part of the city near the King's 
palace and the park. 

The park or square is very pretty. All of the 
finest statuary was wrapped in straw to prevent 
the severe cold of the winter from injuring it. 
When I was there, near the first of November, the 
weather was quite cold and a good fire was neces- 
sary for our comfort. We had some fine weather, 
and some rain. We went through many of the old 
streets; saw the old fountain, the Manikin west of 
the Hotel de Ville, or town hall, and saw a mar- 
riage performed there. We were told that all mar- 
riages in Brussels must be performed at the Hotel 
de Ville, then in a church, if desired. We took our 
seats in a room where were a few other people; 
three soldiers were standing guard near the en- 
trance. A kind of stage or rostrum ran entirely 
across the end of the room, with a high-back chair 
and desk, and square stools arranged in front of 
it, in a semi-circle. Presently we heard a little 

95 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

stir and a light haired woman, fair and fleshy, in 
black with trained dress, black velvet cloak and 
bonnet with white plume, white roses and tulle 
strings, walked in with an elderly man; behind 
them came a slender looking man, leading in a large 
red faced lady in trailing silk dress and black lace 
shawl; the bride's mother, I suppose. Three or 
four other people came in with them, and very 
soon afterwards an old usher threw open the wide 
folding doors opposite the stage, and a very big 
man, all dressed in uniform, sword by his side, 
cocked hat and plumes, red sash and white gloves, 
stalked in grandly, touching his hat to the guards, 
who saluted profoundly, walked up the steps, and 
seated himself in the high-backed chair. An assist- 
ant came forward and ordered the bridal couple to 
take the two stools in front of the big man, while 
the parents and two friends took their seats on the 
stools on either side of them. The big man read 
them a lecture, then they made promises, put on 
rings, signed papers, and were married in the most 
businesslike manner. 

We went down into the old town square or mar- 
ket place, with the quaint, queer old houses looking 

96 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

down upon it, just as they have for so many years ; 
they look dark and old, but tell no tales of the 
days gone by. But there just opposite the Hotel 
de Ville, is a grand monument which tells a glorious 
story of how in the past two of the noblest men that 
ever lived, died here on this very spot for their 
country and their freedom. Egmont and Home 
died here, while the Duke of Alva looked on from 
a window of that dreary old house just behind the 
scaffold, where now stands the monument with 
figures of the two heroes in locked embrace on top 
of it, dressed in full armor, looking so noble, so 
fearless and bold. Twenty-five noblemen were ex- 
ecuted at the same time in 1568. On either side of 
the pedestal stands a statue of a soldier in full 
armor, as if to guard the sacred spot. It was hard 
to realize the dreadful days of yore, when the noble 
martyrs' blood was poured out here to serve as 
seed to the harvest of liberty and freedom. Now 
the sun shines brightly, the same blue sky, the 
same old houses on which the noble heroes gazed 
their last, are looking down on us, while busy, 
merry crowds pass here and there through the 
square, and peasant women in bright colored 

97 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

clothes and wooden shoes, sit at their fruit and 
flower stands, making a pretty bright picture in 
the old place. 

I went to see the Wertz Gallery and was con- 
vinced that Wertz was a madman. I saw huge 
pictures of gigantic angels, devils, gods and god- 
desses. His subjects were taken from Homer and 
Milton, and showed wonderful power of a certain 
kind. One of the smaller paintings represent Na- 
poleon Bonaparte standing cool and composed with 
arms folded, in the flames of hell, while he is 
surrounded by widows and orphans who upbraid 
him and hold up mutilated arms and dishes of 
blood for him to look at. Wertz had a taste for 
the horrible. He seemed to paint windows and 
doors and recesses with people looking out of them, 
a great deal, and sometimes it was difficult to be- 
lieve there was not a door or window where he had 
painted one. I saw some quite pretty pictures. 
We went to the museum of pictures and saw a 
great many curious old paintings of the Dutch 
school, and a great many other pictures, some of 
them very fine, others very horrible, of martyr- 
doms. Some old portraits interested me very 
much. The gallery is a very handsome one. 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

We also visited the Parliament buildings which 
are very handsome and in excellent taste. We 
went to the palace of the Duke of Orange; saw a 
good deal of statuary and some good paintings and 
a handsome ballroom with some quite good mod- 
ern paintings in it. We went to see the great 
Cathedral, which is badly situated and not a hand- 
some building, although it is very extensive. A 
very handsome equestrian statue of the old Cru- 
sader, Godfrey de Bouillon, stands opposite the 
handsome church of St. Jacques, Sir Condenburge. 
Nearby is the King's palace on the park. All 
around the park are wide streets with very hand- 
some public buildings and palaces facing the park, 
and very beautiful streets with fine houses are in 
this, the Court end of the city. We went to see 
lace made, and looked at a great variety of beauti- 
ful laces. One woman was making a point lace 
fan for the Paris Expositioin which took place in 
1878; it takes two years to make a fan with an 
elaborate pattern such as the one I saw. The poor 
women generally lose their sight about middle life, 
and the powder used for bleaching the lace (which 

99 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

becomes very yellow from being worked with so 
long), is very injurious to the health. How horri- 
ble it seemed to be ruining the eyesight of these 
poor wretches. We walked up and down through 
the fine Gallery St. Flubert, which is 690 feet long 
and sixty-four feet high and twenty-six wide. It 
is paved with marble, and covered with glass, with 
rows of handsome shops on either side ; a beautiful 
arcade. We enjoyed looking at the magnificent 
display in the windows. The shops of Brussels 
have a very excellent and handsome display of 
goods at very moderate prices. 

Several times we saw the king driving in his 
open carriage, with four horses and two outriders. 

We first saw dogs made useful by pulling carts, 
at Brussels, and it looked so queer to me to see a 
muzzled dog hitched to a cart filled with milk cans, 
or bread, or stones, while a peasant woman in 
short dress, wooden shoes, bright-colored stock- 
ings and handkerchief tied over her head, walked 
along beside the cart. Sometimes two or even three 
dogs were hitched to one cart. The tram-way, or 
street cars, in Brussels are very nice. 

We went from Brussels to Antwerp on the 10th 
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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

of November, 1876. We passed Vilvoord, where 
William Tyndale was confined for two years, and 
then burned for translating the Scriptures into 
English and distributing them in England. 

We went to a hotel near the station at Antwerp, 
but found that it was not a very good one, though 
we had comfortable rooms. The weather was cold 
and raw, a light snow falling during the night. We 
took a carriage and drove about to see the city. 
We saw a great many men ; fine houses being built ; 
a pretty park ; and handsome monument ; but I was 
more interested in the old part of the city, with its 
narrow streets, and quaint, queer old houses. I 
noticed all along the streets mirrors fastened out in 
front of the windows of the upper stories of the 
dwelling houses, so that the inmates could see 
everything in the street below, without the trouble 
of leaning out. We passed through the fruit mark- 
ets, and saw a great many peasants in their very 
picturesque costumes. The women all wore wood- 
en shoes, bright-colored stockings, short dresses, 
white lace caps, and queer bonnets of straw, shaped 
like flower pots, trimmed with a wide bow of rib- 
bon fastened on the back of them and with ribbon 

101 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

ends hanging down to their waists. They looked 
like Mother Hubbards, with their tall bonnets. I 
saw one old woman riding on the top of her cart- 
load of baskets, her bonnet making the point of the 
pyramid, three dogs pulling the cart, and a young 
man walking by the cart driving the dogs. These 
peasants are good natured, healthy looking, red- 
faced, broad, stout people. Rubens was accustom- 
ed to seeing warm flesh tints, no wonder he made 
his figures coarse and red, when he had such mod- 
els before him all the time. 

We went to the Museum which had a finer collec- 
tion of paintings than that of Brussels. Most of 
the pictures in the two Museums are by the same 
painters. I saw a great many by Rubens. His 
pictures disgust me by their coarseness, but he was 
a wonderful painter. His picture of Christ crucifi- 
ed between two thieves, is the mose powerful of all 
his works, I think, but the agony and writhing of 
one of the thieves is horrible, so true to nature that 
I almost expected to hear him shriek. A Crucifix- 
ion by Van Dyke struck me as very beautiful in 
its refinement and subdued coloring; but I turn 
from the wonderful, powerful, and horrible church 

102 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

pictures to the bright mystic scenes of Teniers. I 
think Rubens the greatest of the Flemish painters 
and most powerful, but his pictures do not give me 
pleasure. Van Dyke's I like better, and many 
paintings by other artists I thought very fine. Some 
of Rembrant's portraits are magnificent. I saw a 
man in the Museum at Antwerp, who had no arms, 
copying a picture. He sat in a high chair and held 
the brush between the toes of his right foot, and 
the pallet with his left foot, of course, he had off 
his shoes, and the toes of his stockings were cut off. 
He seemed to use the brush well, and was making 
quite a good copy of the picture. I observed him 
while seeming to look at the paintings near him. 

I went to the Cathedral which is a very large, 
handsome, Gothic building. We walked about a 
great deal through the city, and saw remnants of 
its former glory, and of its present prosperity and 
improvement. 

We went from Antwerp to Cologne on the 12th 
of November, 1876. We stopped at Aix-la-Chapelle 
three hours. We walked to the Cathedral and saw 
the tomb of Charlemagne, which is a large marble 
slab in the floor of the Cathedral in front of the 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

altar, with the inscription "Carlo Magno" on it. 
A bronze candelabra presented by Frederick Bar- 
barossa hangs just over the tomb. 

We reached Cologne Saturday evening, the 12th 
of November, and went to the Hotel du Dome, a 
good hotel near the station and to the Cathedral, 
the latter of which is the one object of great in- 
terest at Cologne. We had comfortable rooms, 
I had a fire made in my stove. All day Sunday I 
stayed closely in the house, for a bitter cold wind 
blew snow and hail about and the people going 
past to the Cathedral seemed nearly frozen and 
hardly able to walk for the wind. Monday the 
weather was warmer, so we took a carriage and 
drove through the principal parts of the city, hold- 
ing handkerchiefs to our noses, for the odor of the 
streets was most unpleasant, and we each bought a 
bottle of Cologne water. The streets were wet 
and muddy from the melted snow, but seemed 
otherwise clean. We went to the Church of St. Ur- 
sula and saw quantities of bones said to be the 
bones of St. Ursula and her 11,000 virgin attend- 
ants, who were slain here on their return from a 
pilgrimage to Rome, when they were on their way 
to their homes in England. 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

We went into the great Cathedral and I thought 
I had never seen any building so beautiful, so 
grand, so magnificent. The fine Gothic arches and 
noble columns were the grandest I had ever seen. 
To stand and look down the long lines of columns 
with the graceful arches rising from them, away, 
away up, over my head, every line, every curve in 
most beautiful harmony and proportion, was a rare 
treat to my eyes. The exterior is as beautiful as 
the interior; the graceful slender spires rising high 
above the roof, handsome windows, doors and 
heavy stone arches, all beautifully proportioned, 
making one grand, magnificent, sublime object of 
perfect beauty. 

We took our meals in a nice dining-room, adjoin- 
ing which was a large concert room. On Sunday 
night a concert was given and a great many people 
seemed to be present. I retired to my room, the 
music being too profane for Sunday. 

The next evening the Mayor of the city gave a 
large entertainment in the hall, which we saw a 
great deal of from the dining-room. It was the fif- 
tieth anniversary of his marriage, the anniversary 
of his daughter's marriage, and the betrothal of his 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

younger daughter. There was a stage across one 
end of the room and long tables were placed down 
the whole length of the hall, two or three rows of 
them. Plates and glasses and black bottles all 
along the edges of the tables, pyramids of flowers 
and cake decorated the center. The guests sat in 
chairs close around the tables, ate, drank, and 
smoked, then all would lean back in their chairs 
and sing, each person holding a paper with a copy 
of the words of the song, I suppose. There was a 
very good orchestra in the hall to play the accom- 
paniments and they played pretty waltzes and other 
pieces, then some of the people would leave the 
tables and waltz in the empty space between them 
and the wall. A great many speeches were made, 
the speaker rising from his seat. Eating and drink- 
ing filled up all the pauses. The entertainment 
was kept up until late. Long after I had slept I 
awoke and heard music and dancing still going on. 
We left Cologne on November 15, 1876, and 
went up the Rhine to Mayence, reaching Frank- 
fort on the train that night. We had a bright, love- 
ly day to go up the Rhine ; the water was clear and 
the mountains purple in the sunlight. The Rhine 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

seemed a small river, but the scenery is very beau- 
tiful, and the veil of romance and sentiment thrown 
over it all made the trip most interesting. The old 
ruins seemed placed on the very spots best suited 
to produce a picturesque effect. Every point had 
some historical or legendary association, and even 
the little town of Bingen with its vine clad hills 
brought up Mrs. Norton's beautiful lines, while 
Byron's matchless words were constantly in my 
mind all the way. I was like one in a dream, and 
felt like shaking myself and saying, "Is this really 
the Rhine, are those beautiful mountains and gray 
old ruins the ones I have heard and read of, but 
most surprising of all, is this really me, myself, is it 
I, my very self, seeing all this with my own eyes and 
drinking in all this beauty with my whole being, 
with Byron's beautiful ideas and words to describe 
it and express it for me?" 

We reached Frankfort in the afternoon of the 15th 
of November, and went to the Frankfort Hoff, a 
new and very excellent and handsome hotel. The 
next morning we attended to a little shopping, and 
found nice shops, very fine goods, and prices mod- 
erate. We then took a long walk through the city, 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

and we met a gentleman whom some of the ladies 
asked the way to the Romer, where the Emperors 
used to be elected and where the new Emperor and 
his electors used to show themselves to the people 
from the balcony. The decorations, etc., date from 
1740. The gentleman was very polite and insisted 
in very good English, on showing us the way. He 
walked with us to the old square, pointed out 
many objects of interest, and took us into the Ro- 
mer, or Kaisersaal or Imperial Hall. He then said 
he would take us to an old stone bridge built by 
Charlemagne. It was much impressed by the solid 
old structure with its arches looking as if they 
would stand as long as the world stands. We 
walked back to our hotel another way, our guide 
telling us of many very interesting places, and ac- 
companying us to the door of the hotel. 

We took the tram-way late in the afternoon and 
went out to the Palm Garden, a pretty park with 
large hot houses and a fine concert hall. It is sit- 
uated just out of the city. We saw the hot houses 
with their beautiful palms and flowers, and then 
took our seats at one of the small round tables in 
the concert hall, which was brilliantly lighted by a 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

magnificent chandelier and gass jets. Galleries 
supported by columns ran all around the hall, ex- 
cept at the end opposite the door where was the 
place for the band on a raised gallery. Little tables 
with chairs at them were placed all over the hall 
and along the gallery, and very soon every place 
was taken in the large hall by nice looking, hand- 
somely dressed people. Waiters ran about receiv- 
ing orders; every one began to eat meats, salads, 
ices, cakes, pies, and vegetables, and drink beer or 
wine, the most beautiful music being played by the 
band all the while. Then ladies took out their 
knitting or embroidery, and a cloud of tobacco 
smoke testified that nearly every man in the room 
was smoking. As hungry as I was, for I had had 
no dinner, I would drop my knife and fork to listen 
to the exquisite music, while my German neigh- 
bors plied their knives all the time; for all the 
Germans I have seen at the table eat with their 
knives, running them into their mouths in a truly 
alarming manner. An entrance fee is charged at the 
gate of the Parbrean, then you pay the waiter for 
dinner, or other refreshments you order. We had 
nice beef-steak and other very good food, and 
wound up with ice-cream. 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

We left Frankfort November 17th, and rode in 
the cars twelve hours to Berlin. The country is not 
particularly interesting, parts of it are pretty and 
some of the towns we passed through interesting 
from associations of Weimar and Goethe. We 
reached Berlin at night. We could not speak 
German, and no one at the station could speak any- 
thing else, but the officials looked at our baggage 
and tickets, then put us in charge of a man with a 
brass plate on his coat, and we tried to make him 
understand with the assistance of a huge helmeted 
policeman what hotel we wished to go to. Just 
then a little man, a traveler, came up, and in good 
English offered to assist us. Oh, wasn't I glad to 
hear the English tongue! At Berlin things are 
done with military precision, and in less than ten 
minutes after the cars arrived, passengers, bag- 
gage, and even ourselves were sent out of the sta- 
tion in the quickest, most quiet manner. We went 
to the Hotel du Rome, were asked tremendous 
prices for rooms, and then were given some, a little 
lower priced, but not nice, and besides, the in- 
evitable feather bed. I removed that nuisance, and 
by dint of pantomime made the chambermaid un- 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

derstand I must have sheets and blankets, which 
were very soon produced. We ate a la carte, and 
were charged extra for milk to put in our coffee, and 
butter for our bread, and soon we found that the 
people at that hotel were trying to take advantage 
of us in every possible way, so we found one much 
more reasonable and more comfortable. 

We took long drives through the city. Saw the 
handsome palaces and public buildings, and the 
very handsome statue and monument to Frederick 
the Great, which stands in the Park. The column 
has a beautiful statue of Victory on top, made of 
brass cannon taken from the French during the 
Franco-Prussian War in 1870. 

We spent one day at Potsdam, and saw Freder- 
ick the Great's new palace where Queen Victoria's 
eldest daughter lives. She is the wife of Frederick, 
Crown Prince of Prussia. We met her riding on 
horseback, with her two young daughters and a 
gentleman. She is fat, fair, rosy, and good looking. 
We went through the most interesting parts of the 
palace, and then drove on to Sans Souci, beautifully 
situated, and most interesting from its associations. 
We saw the large chair in which the Great Fred- 
Ill 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

erick died, standing at the window, where he look- 
ed his last out over the splendid view of the beau- 
tiful country. We saw many other residences of 
princes, kings and emperors, but none of then 
interested me like those associated with the great- 
est of all Prussian Kings, Frederick the Great. An 
English lady who was travelling with us seemed 
very much suprised at my knowledge of the his- 
tory of the reigning families of Germany, and I 
told her I had read Carlyle's history of Frederick 
the Great. One of the greatest treats we had at 
Berlin was going to the opera. 

From Berlin we went to Dresden, where we had 
very cold weather and snow, but enjoyed the 
splendid picture galleries much more than the gal- 
leries at Brussels and Antwerp. The Sistine Ma- 
donna is by far the most beautiful of all the Ma- 
donnas; it is worth going from America to Dres- 
den to see. 

In November, 1876 we went to Vienna, where it 
was still cold. We went to a large, handsome hotel, 
and I had a large room with a huge porcelain stove 
in the corner, round and tall like a monument. I 
ordered fire, which seemed to be made from the out- 

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Sallie Alexander Moore 
In 1880, then forty years old 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

side in the hall. I could hear them pouring coal 
in, and although after waiting for some time, there 
was no heat. I called again for fire, then I had to 
ring a third time, but never got any heat that day. 
I went to bed very cold, covering with the feather 
bed provided, steamer rug and everything I had. 
I awoke late in the night, nearly suffocated with the 
heat. The monument had become hot. I threw off 
the feather bed and rushed to the window, which 
had double sashes, two opening inside and two out- 
ward, and a great cushion like bolster between the 
two sashes. All the windows I saw in Vienna had 
these double sashes and cushions between them. 
That heat lasted me the whole time I was there, 
and when I left they sent me a bill for three fires. 
Vienna is a beautiful city, and we took a carriage 
and drove all about to see the sights. We went to 
see the Emperor's stables. One stable had the 
white horses from Hanover for the Emperor's 
carriage, to be used on state occasions, and another 
stable was filled with cream colored horses for the 
Empress. There were large stables full of the 
most beautiful horses and ponies from everywhere, 
and every stall had fastened in front of it the pedi- 
gree of the horse it contained. 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

From Vienna we went to Trieste, a beautiful city 
on the Adriatic. Situated near Trieste is Miramare 
on the Sea, the home of the ill-fated Maxmillian, 
former Emperor of Mexico. It has the most beau- 
tiful palace and grounds, indeed it was the most 
homelike palace I saw anywhere. 

From Trieste we went on to Venice, crossing the 
Sea at night, and reaching Venice a dark rainy 
morning, everything dismal, the black gondolas 
looking like hearses, came to meet us and took us 
to a very nice hotel, but when the sun came out 
everything was glorified and beautiful. I tried to 
take a nap after being awake all night, but it was 
so quiet I could not sleep after being in cities with 
cobble stone pavements, horses and vehicles. I 
arose and from a balcony watched men bring a boat 
load of fresh water and fill a cistern in a court-yard 
opposite, (across the canal) — just an open boat full 
of water. The men dipped buckets of water and 
poured them into the cistern. Their feet were bare 
and they got a good washing for once. 

We stayed two weeks in Venice. While there I 
heard the beautiful Oratorio of Moses in Egypt, the 
Italian language being so beautiful with music, so 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

different from the German. We went in gondolas, 
and when we came out they called the numbers, 
just as we do carriages in other cities. St. Mark's 
Cathedral and Piazza are beautiful, especially at 
night; columns and arches all around the square 
and a lamp in every arch. The shops are brilliant- 
ly lighted all around the square also. We went in- 
to the Old Council of Ten, and through the Bridge 
of Sighs into the prison. The Bridge of Sighs has 
two narrow pathways divided by a partition. We 
took long excursions in the gondolas through the 
Grand Canal and round the lagoons. 

Then we went to Florence and spent December 
there. I had letters from Mildred Lee and from 
Bishop Richard Wilmer, introducing me to people 
in different places, who were very nice to us. We 
stayed at Madame Jotties, a good little Italian 
woman. Florence is a most beautiful and interest- 
ing city. We spent much time in the Pitti and 
Uffizi Picture Galleries. 

Driving in the park I met the Empress Eugenie, 
former Empress of France, in an open carriage. I 
also met a gentleman driving an open vehicle with 
twelve fine bay horses and two footmen mounted 

115 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

up behind his carriage. He was driving through 
one of the narrow streets without side-walks, and 
I had to take refuge in a doorway. When I came 
back to Madam Jotties, I asked her if it was the 
King or who it was, she laughed and said. "No, 
indeed, it is not the King, but an American." He 
had formerly driven sixteen horses and the govern- 
ment of the city had to limit him to twelve, and 
they were afraid it was dangerous. This was in 
1876. I was in Florence again some years later 
and he was driving sixteen horses. He had told 
the authorities that he would leave the city if they 
would not let him have more than twelve horses. 
I was seated on a bench in the park one day and 
saw him driving around the circle very rapidly and 
it was a beautiful sight to see the sixteen bay horses 
with their bright and burnished harness. After I 
left there, I saw in one of the English papers that 
his sixteen horses had become frightened in the 
park, and torn through the narrow streets of the 
city, upsetting vehicles and doing a great deal of 
damage, and he was thrown out. 

I went from Florence to Rome about the first of 
January. I had many friends in Rome. I met Doc- 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

tor Edward P. Terhune and his family there, his 
wife was Marian Harland, the writer. I also met 
the Taylors from Virginia who were missionaries 
in Rome. Also met Mrs. Haxall, of Richmond, Vir- 
ginia, and Mrs. Amoss who was a sister of Dr. Zol- 
ikoffer. 

Rome to me was the most interesting place in 
the world; the ruins, pictures, sculpture, museum, 
and music were all so wonderful, and as I settled 
myself for several month I could enjoy that at my 
leisure. The museums at the Vatican were most 
interesting, and when I would get tired I would go 
into St. Peters. In cool weather it was always 
warm and in warm weather it was always cool, it 
seemed to have its own temperature. One day 
while I was resting in St. Peter's some ladies came 
up where I was and finding I was from America, 
asked me if I knew any of Commodore Maury's 
family, that they had heard some of the family 
were in Europe and they wanted to find them, as 
they knew them. I told them they were at Nice, 
and I gave them their address. They had been in 
Rome just the week before. 

After Easter I saw fourteen people, mostly wo- 
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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

men, going up the Santa Scalla (Holy Stairs) on 
their knees; there were rough boards put on the 
marble steps to protect them, and people must 
climb up on their knees without using their hands 
and say all of the prayers of the Rosary on each 
step. It takes four hours to climb them. Mrs. 
Terhune's good maid Rose, was made ill by it, as 
the place is very cold. Martin Luther tried to as- 
cend these steps, and when he got half way up he 
thought of a text, "The just shall live by faith." 
He got up and came away. I saw many people 
kissing the toe of the bronze statue of St. Peter 
in St. Peter's. Many women wiped it with their 
handkerchiefs before kissing it. The toe was part- 
ly worn away. Neither the Terhunes nor myself 
were presented to Pope Pius IX, but Rose was. 

One day when driving through one of the streets 
of Rome I passed where a very handsome house 
was being built and fifteen workmen were stand- 
ing in a row eating their dinner, which consisted 
of a chunk of dark bread and an orange, except 
one man, who had a lump of dates instead of an 
orange. At San Remo in Italy I saw women carry- 
ing stones on their heads to build houses with ; they 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

carried all of the mortar up to the workmen. I 
often met two women walking abreast carrying 
large bags of flour on their heads, and I saw long 
lines of women coming down the mountains with 
large baskets of oranges on their heads, and they 
even carried our trunks on their heads. The wo- 
men wind the cloth around the top of their heads, 
making a mat to protect their heads. The Italians 
who made the St. Gothard tunnel were only paid 
sixty cents a day and furnished their own food once 
a day, which consisted of polento, (our grits). I 
could get a good dressmaker for thirty cents a 
day in Rome. 

One day we joined a party and went down into 
the Pope's treasury and saw all of his jewels; the 
triple crown, coronation robes of Charlemange, and 
a great many more magnificent jewels of all kinds. 
Sometimes we would spend a day on the Capitol 
Hill, and one night we visited the Coliseum and 
Pantheon by moonlight. Sometimes, in the after- 
noons, we would go out on the Pincion Hill and 
there would be crowds of people there to hear the 
band play, and one afternoon we saw King Victor 
Emanuel First of Italy. The Royal Guards were 

119 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

the most magnificent men I ever saw. The first 
one I saw seemed to be a giant with his magnifi- 
cent uniform and helmet. I remarked to one of 
my friends that I was sure that he was Goliath. 
The Italian officers are very handsome, they use a 
good deal of gold braid which is very becoming to 
their dark beauty. I used to see the Bersagliere, 
the advance guard of the Italian army, going 
through the streets double quick, all of them with 
cock plumes on their hats waving in the air. Very 
often I met Princess Margarita, and Prince Hum- 
bert, and their little son, who is now the King of 
Italy, all of them in their separate carriages. One 
day I went on an excursion out to Tivoli. The 
scenery around Rome is very beautiful. The 
Apennines remind me very much of our Blue Ridge 
Mountains, and the Campania, which I had imagin- 
ed a vast plane, I found a very undulating country. 
The ancient arches of masonry which support 
the aqueducts, extending across the country, four 
of which are still in use, are very beautiful. The 
pipes are said to be large enough for a man to 
crawl through. They bring the water from the 
mountains, eighteen miles distant, to Rome, to 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

supply her many beautiful fountains, it being the 
purest water in Europe and the only place where 
I dared drink any water at all. 

When the Carnival began I was invited to a 
balcony on the Corso, the principal street in Rome. 
The Carnival lasted about two weeks and would 
begin every day about two o'clock. From this bal- 
cony I could see all the processions, the throwing of 
confetti, etc. ; we were protected by wire masks 
over our faces. One day when I was leaning over 
the balcony rail gazing down below into the crowd, 
someone struck me right in the face with a huge 
bouquet, but fortunately I had my wire mask. It 
was the jolliest, most good humored crowd I ever 
saw, and never a drunken man among them. I 
never saw a drunken man on the Continent, where 
they drink the light wines and beer. One morning 
during the Carnival we were driving down the 
streets going sightseeing, and we met a funeral pro- 
cession led by a body of Capuchin monks in their 
long brown coats and sandalled feet, singing the 
most melancholy dirge, followed by a hearse and 
procession of carriages. It seemed so strange in 
that street with the houses so gaily decorated. 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Afterwards we heard that the lady who had died 
was a very wealthy banker's wife and had had her 
house beautifully decorated for the Carnival in 
Japanese hangings, and she herself dressed as a 
Japanese woman. She had died suddenly with 
heart trouble in the midst of the festivities. 

I had gone to Naples for a week or two in Jan- 
uary, and we went again in the spring. Of course, 
everybody knows Naples is the most beautiful 
place — the Italians say, "See Naples and die." And 
I feel sure that it is one of the most beautiful 
places in the world. I stayed at the Hotel Britanic 
on the heights on the Corso Victor Emanuel which 
was kept by Madam McPherson, a Scotch woman; 
she was the head of the house, keeping office, books, 
etc., while her husband occupied the position of 
head waiter. He was a very fine looking man and 
as he marched in at the head of the line of waiters, 
each dressed in evening clothes, he looked like a 
count or a lord. They always had a table d'hote 
dinner, with changing of plates and knives and 
forks at every course which takes up much time, 
and often during the dinner we would have the 
most beautiful music in the hall; there were a 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

group of performers on the harp, violins and man- 
dolins, and one man had a most beautiful voice. 

One day we went out to Capri, three hours out 
from Naples, and these same musicians were on the 
boat. It was a beautiful day, the water clear and 
bright, and dolphins jumping up and down spout- 
ing water, made rainbows. When we reached Cap- 
ri, of course the first thing we did was to go 
to the Blue Grotto, and we got off the steamer in- 
to little boats where we had to lie down and be 
pushed into the Grotto. Afterwards we landed on 
the other side of the Island, and mounted donkeys 
and rode up over the Island on the heights. The 
girls who drove the donkeys were considered very 
beautiful, but what struck me most forcibly were 
their shrill voices when they yelled to the people 
to take their donkeys, they were worse than the 
hackmen in our cities. It was a funny sight to see 
the tall Englishmen seated on the little donkeys, 
holding their feet up to keep from dragging on the 
ground. Once afterwards in Switzerland I met 
two English ladies who had been of the party at 
Capri, and asked them what became of them, as 
we did not see them any more at Naples. They 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

told us they had stayed to spend the night with 
friends in a hotel in Capri, but that it was so 
stormy they did not get off of the Island for two 
weeks, because the boats could not land. 

We took the various excursions around Naples, 
and one day went up Vesuvius. We found at the 
hotel when we were ready to start that the coach- 
man, Ernesto, whom we generally got, was away, 
so we went to a cab-stand and hired a large car- 
riage, with a fine looking driver and horses, for 
the trip up Vesuvius. I was the one who selected 
it because I liked the looks of the horses and driver. 
After we started, some of the ladies in the car- 
riage began to find fault with the coachman, say- 
ing that he looked like a brigand, that he might 
murder us or throw us down the precipice, but as 
I had chosen him, I defended him, and said he 
was an honest, good looking man. After the dis- 
cussion had lasted for some time he turned around 
and in very good English told us that he was 
Ernesto's brother, which settled the ladies very ef- 
fectively. Of course he was very nice to me, as 
I had taken up for him. After we returned to the 
hotel, we met Ernesto, who said he had never had 
a brother. 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Of course we spent a whole day at Pompeii, that 
most interesting place, going ail through the ruins 
of the city. Another time we went through Pom- 
peii, Mrs. Terhune and I got permission from the 
guide to leave the party and go by ourselves 
through the most interesting places, and we had 
with us a copy of Bulwer's "Last Days of Pom- 
peii" and she read the principal scenes aloud. We 
drove out to Sorrento and stayed all night at 
Castle Marrie, and then made another excursion in 
the opposite direction. We drove through Grotto 
Posilipo, which is a tunnel, out to Baiae, and to 
Lake Avernus, and the Sibyl's Cave, and then we 
ascended the volcano of Solfatara and walked all 
around inside of the crater. At one place the 
steam and sulphurous gases were rushing out with 
great noise; some poor invalids in wheeled chairs 
were sitting in front of it to inhale the fumes, and 
another place a great spring of boiling water was 
bubbling up and steaming. Solfatara was quiet 
then, but when it is in eruption, Vesuvius is quiet, 
and vice versa. We were told that long ago when 
Solfatara was in eruption and Vesuvius was quiet, 
some escaped prisoners hid in the crater of Ve- 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

suvius. Near Solfatara is a mountain that was 
thrown up in the night by an earthquake, and they 
call it Monte Nuovo. 

While I was in Naples I induced an English lady 
to go to the Scotch Church with me, she said she 
had never heard any "sectarians," that at home in 
England she and her husband read the services 
at home, that they hardly ever went to church, be- 
cause the preachers were such "muffs." We heard 
a splendid sermon at the Scotch Church, but I do 
not think she appreciated it. There were Scotch 
and English churches everywhere. At Rome 
there was a Scotch Church and an English church 
outside of the gates, because the Pope did not al- 
low them to be built inside, but since the new 
government they have built American Presbyter- 
ian, Baptist, and Methodist churches. The Metho- 
dists have a large following there making their 
church very successful. The Jews of Rome had 
always been confined to the Ghetto, and when the 
Pope was crowned, the leaders of the Jews had to 
do homage to the Pope at the Bridge of St. Angelo 
as he passed over. Pius the Ninth was the first 
Pope who did away with that custom. Now under 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

the new government the Jews are not confined to 
the Ghetto, and in late years a Jew, Mr. Nathan, 
was Mayor of Rome for two terms. 

Among some articles I had packed in Italy and 
sent home, some of the tropical snails were brought 
accidentally, thought to have been in the straw the 
things were packed in. They were the edible 
snails, yellow with black stripes, some pink and 
red and plain yellow. They first appeared in the 
grounds of my home and increased rapidly. On 
rainy days I would see professors of our institu- 
tions looking for snails along the hedges and walls. 
I think they have spread out in many directions, 
but I never heard of anyone eating them as they do 
in Paris and Spain. 

We returned to Rome from Naples, and when I 
left Rome I joined the Terhunes and we went to 
Florence. We went to Pisa one day. The whole 
country was in bloom. We ascended the Leaning 
Tower, and enjoyed the wonderful echo in the 
Baptistry. We returned to Florence spending 
several weeks there, then went on to Genoa, and 
thence to Milan, where we spent a week or two, 
and saw the Cathedral which is the most beauti- 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

ful creation of man in this world. Of course we 
went down into the crypt and saw the mummy of 
old Carlo Borromeo, lying in his rock crystal cof- 
fin with all his jewels and riches around him, and 
the silver statues Mark Twain wanted to melt up. 

From Milan we went on to Lake Como, where 
we spent several days enjoying the exquisite 
scenery and this most beautiful lake. While flow- 
ers and the magnolia trees were blooming around 
the Lake, the high mountain tops were covered 
with snow. 

When we left Como, Dr. Terhune hired a dili- 
gence and we went on to the town of Lugano on 
the beautiful Lake Lugano. I saw a magnificent 
thunder storm on the Lake. From there we went 
on towards the St. Gotthard Pass to Airolo, where 
we spent the night, crossing the Pass the next day. 
This was early in July, 1877, the tunnel was not 
finished then, we saw them at work on both ends. 
It was very cold on top of the mountain, and a 
small lake up there was covered with ice, and there 
was a great deal of snow. But we gathered Alpine 
flowers all the way which were growing out close 
up to the banks of snow. Crossing we reached the 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

town of Andermatt, and from there we crossed 
the Furka Pass, the highest pass in Switzerland, 
and saw the Rhone glacier where the River Rhone 
rises. 

Travelling through Switzerland we were very 
much surprised to see how the women work. I 
saw them carrying huge piles of hay on their backs 
until they looked like walking hay-stacks. They 
also carried large cans of milk on their backs. 

We went to Lucerne, and during the six weeks 
I spent there I was always trying to decide which 
was the most beautiful lake and which had the 
most beautiful scenery, Lucerne or Lake Como. I 
thought the monument of the Lion of Lucerne to 
the Swiss Guards who died in defense of Marie 
Antoinette and Louis XVI was the most striking 
in the world, it is by Thorwaldsen. 

'At Lucerne I joined two ladies, a mother and 
daughter, and we went by Lake Constance )to 
Munich and Stuttgart, and at Munich I was much 
struck by the portrait gallery of beautiful women 
that one of the kings collected. He had a very 
good portrait painter, and had the portraits of all 
the beautiful women he could find or hear of, from 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

a shoemaker's daughter to queens and princesses. 
He had three or four very large rooms in the 
palace filled with them, and among them was a 
portrait of Lord Erskine's daughter, the English 
woman who married a German, Baron Torpheus, 
and who was the authoress of "Initials." I got 
that book to re-read while in Munich. Every place 
I went I always tried to get the book that most 
clearly described the life of the city where I was 
stopping. I also went to Baden-Baden, and after- 
wards returned to Lucerne. From Lucerne we 
crossed the Brunig Pass and were at Interlaken 
two weeks. While there we had fine weather and 
every evening at sunset we saw the beautiful Al- 
pine glow on the Jungfrau, the grandest and 
most splendid snow mountain I have ever seen, 
looking out between and towering above two 
green mountains, it would blush rosy red, then a 
lovely pink, and all at once startle one with its 
snowy whiteness. 

We went by the Lake of Thun on to Bern, and 
by Lousanne to Geneva. From Geneva I visited 
the home of Voltaire, Ferney, and Madame de 
Stael's home at Coppet, and I drove in a diligence 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

out to the Valley of Chamouni and enjoyed the 
magnificent scenery on the way. We stayed at a 
very good hotel, and I hired a guide and a mule 
and rode up Montauvert by a narrow path taking 
two hours to reach the Mer-de-Glace. The mules 
would step on the edge of the precipice, and the 
guide said the reason was because they were ac- 
customed to carry bundles and panniers up the 
mountain. I heard my guide tell another guide 
that I knew how to ride. There was a very large 
party going up with me. The sun was bright and 
warm, melting the ice and snow and making the 
surface of Mer-de-Glace very slippery. I bought 
a pair of woolen socks to put on over my shoes 
from a Swiss woman up there, which were a great 
help. We crossed stepping over crevasses, and go- 
ing on to the Mauvais Pass. A party of Ameri- 
cans had told me at Interlaken that they had pass- 
ed there just a week or two before and that just 
as they were crossing the Mauvais Pass a large 
piece of rock came pitching down from the height 
above as they were stepping along on the narrow 
ledge, threatening them with destruction. One of 
the guides cried out they were lost, but the large 

131 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

, _ — , . v 

rock passed between two people, the fragments on- 
ly wounding a few of them. One old lady had a 
scalp wound and it bled so freely they thought she 
was going to die, but found afterwards that she 
was only slightly injured. After the Bad Pass we 
rested at a chalet called the Chapeau. We had re- 
freshments and then mounted our mules which had 
been brought up to meet us, and rode down the 
mountain. The Alpine glow on the glaciers and 
snow mountains was beautiful from Chamouni. 

From Geneva I went to Paris with Mrs. Haxall 
and Mrs. Amoss, about the first of October. I 
spent October and November there, and we stayed 
at a boarding house kept by Miss Ellis, an English 
lady, not far from the Arch-de-Triumph. My 
friends, Doctor and Mrs. Zolikoffer were at the 
Hotel Chatham. 

That fall while I was in Paris I went to the 
funeral of the King of Hanover. He died in Paris 
where he was an exile. Mrs. Zolikoffer called for 
me in a carriage and took me to a friend's house 
on the Champs Elysee to see the procession. The 
King was a first cousin of Queen Victoria of Eng- 
land; and the Prince of Wales, afterwards King 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Edward VII, walked behind the funeral car with 
Hanoverian princes, and Austrian royalties; these 
latter were dressed in brightest colors and finest 
court dresses, knee breeches and velvet cloaks; the 
car was drawn by eight white horses, led by eight 
tall lackies dressed in scarlet coats, white satin 
breeches, long white stockings, cocked hats, and 
were very much trimmed up with gold lace. There 
were ten thousand French troops in the procession 
and bands of music. The King of Hanover was 
buried in England, where he was the Duke of Cum- 
berland. Mrs. Zolikoffer had a German friend who 
had been lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Han- 
over; she persuaded the blind King and his daugh- 
ter, Princess Frederica, to receive Doctor and Mrs. 
Zolikoffer in their Paris residence. It was funny 
to hear the Doctor tell of their experience. He was 
greatly disgusted, said they were handed from one 
flunky to another, and from one room to another, 
waiting a long time. At last the King and his 
daughter arrived, after being seated the King talk- 
ed to the Doctor five minutes, and the Princess to 
Mrs. Zolikoffer five minutes, and then the King and 
his daughter departed, leaving them to be escorted 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

out by the attendants again; but Mrs. Zolikoffer 
was delighted. 

Mrs. Amoss had a private carriage and took me 
all about the city, showing me everything of in- 
terest. We spent a great deal of time in the Louvre 
Picture Galleries. I went to St. Dennis with the 
Zolikoffers, and to Versailles. I had many friends 
in Paris that fall. 

There was a movement at that time in France 
to restore the Empire, and young Louis Napoleon, 
Eugenie's son, came over from England to Brus- 
sels to be ready. A great many soldiers were 
brought into Paris, we could see them parade up 
and down and drill in the square. I was struck 
by the French soldiers being so small, they were 
the smallest men in Europe, such a contrast to the 
big English, German, and Italian soldiers. They 
kept the city quiet. The shopkeepers and people 
of Paris generally seemed to be anxious for the 
restoration of the Empire, and many of them wore 
great bunches of blue violets, the Bonaparte flower. 
The question was settled by a vote of the people 
in favor of the republic. 

I went with Miss Ellis, the English lady who kept 
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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

the pension, to the Garden d' Acclimation, and saw 
the first birds of Paradise ever brought to Europe, 
there were four of them, and many other beautiful 
birds. When we tried to come home, every car 
and vehicle was taken, there was such a crowd. 
Finally we saw a milk woman in her white cap 
and apron, driving by in her milk cart, so we beg- 
ged her to take us in, which she did, and we mount- 
ed up behind her, and the milk cans, in the nice 
little open cart, and drove away, through the city 
streets, but before reaching the pension Miss Ellis 
made her let us out at the corner for fear the 
boarders would see us driving in a milk cart. 

October was very pleasant, but in November 
the cold rains began and the days became shorter, 
and I heard from all sides what a bad winter cli- 
mate Paris had, so the first of December I joined 
friends and went south by Marseilles to Nice. It 
was so beautiful there, sitting in the sunshine lis- 
tening to the music. While there we went over to 
Monte Carlo at Monaco, to see the gamblers. They 
had there the finest orchestra in Europe, and gave 
three concerts a day. It is such a beautiful place. 
How strange it was to watch ladies and gentlemen 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

sitting around the tables so intent on the game. I 
did not take a chance, but some of my friends did 
and lost a small amount of money, which cured 
them of gambling. Afterwards we heard that some 
people lost all they had, and went out and commit- 
ted suicide. 

We spent some time in Nice, and then went over 
to a place near Genoa, called Peggli, where they 
had a hotel in a magnificent old palace. While 
there I met a Prussian officer and his wife, who sat 
next me at the table d'hote dinner. He was sec- 
ond surgeon on the staff of old Emperor William 
the First, during the Franco-Prussian War. I al- 
ways registered from Virginia, and he told me he 
had read everything he could find about the Civil 
War, and he said, "Madam, you had all the great 
generals on your side." He seemed to have the 
greatest admiration for Lee and Jackson. This 
was in 1878. I asked him a great deal about Von 
Moltke and Bismarck, and he said that Bismarck 
was such an autocrat, that he wondered why the 
Emperor did not get rid of him. 

After staying several weeks there, I went to San 
Remo, a most beautiful place, and there I met two 

136 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Scotch-Irish ladies from near Belfast. It was their 
first trip abroad. One of them was helpless from 
rheumatism and had her Scotch-Irish maid with 
her. As soon as they knew that I was a Presbyter- 
ian of Scotch-Irish descent, they adopted me. 
They were very unhappy there among so many 
Papists, as they called the Roman Catholics, they 
thought they might poison them; they showed me 
the tea leaves, said the tea did not taste right. I 
told them there was no danger, that Catholics did 
not do anything like that now, only wanted their 
money for board. They could never learn the Ital- 
ian money, and I used to go shopping with the one 
who was able to go about. Before I left there the 
lady who kept the pension told me that I had been 
a great comfort to her in managing the old ladies. 
Our landlady was French, and very nice. 

I came back to Paris in the Spring by Turin 
where I spent about a week, and through the Mont 
Cenis Tunnel, and stopped at Aix-les-Bains a week 
or so, and a night and a part of a day at Dijon. We 
also spent a day and night at Fontainebleau, went 
all through the palace, and drove through the park, 
it was most interesting. Then we went to Paris 
for the Exposition. 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

The Exposition was very interesting, principal- 
ly French goods. The French crown jewels were 
exhibited in a large circular glass case, they were 
the jewels that the Empress Eugenie and Louis 
Napoleon had worn, and were very magnifincent. 

With two ladies from Ohio I went to see the 
artist Worth's establishment. He was a designer 
of ladies' dresses. He was a tall handsome gray 
haired Englishman. One of the head women show- 
ed us into a large room or saloon where we were 
seated on sofas around the wall with many other 
ladies, and we told the head lady what kind of 
dresses we wanted for street or evening wear. 
They had the very handsomest young women to 
show off the designs which were made of the rich- 
est materials, and they would come out and walk 
up and down before us dressed in these beautiful 
costumes so we could each choose the pattern and 
material we liked best and have it made there. I 
thought to myself, if I were only a dressmaker 
from New York, what an opportunity it would be 
for me to get the latest and most beautiful designs. 

One excursion I made with friends out to the 
Sevres China Manufactory, returning by St. Cloud 

138 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

and through the Bois de Boulogne. My cousin, 
William A. Anderson, was a Commissioner to the 
Exposition, and his wife and Miss Clara Davidson 
came with him to Paris. The Exposition was open- 
ed May 1, 1878. 

We had been trying for weeks to get seats at 
the Grand Opera, but it was almost impossible to 
get them on account of the crowds in Paris. When 
I was about to leave for England my cousin saw 
one of the managers of the Opera, who told him he 
could get one seat only for him, so I took it, my 
cousin accompanying me to the door and putting 
me in charge of a Frenchman who escorted me to 
an excellent place. I enjoyed the splendid per- 
formance, it was the opera of Faust. When the 
long interlude arrived, the French gentleman came 
and invited me to come with him and see the Opera 
House, the grandest in the world. He showed me 
the magnificent building, pointing out the various 
stones and marble used in the building, and the 
statuary, and showed me the large Sevres china 
vases, worth $60,000 apiece in our money. Then 
he led me to the balcony in front, showing me the 
electric lights like full moons, on both sides, and 

139 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

the whole length of the Avenue de 1' Opera. The 
Opera House faces the Avenue de l'Opera. These 
were the first electric lights I had ever seen. He 
said they were operated from the basement of the 
Opera House. There were no automobiles then 
either. Among all the brilliant audience in the 
Opera House, I saw in two of the most conspicuous 
seats a colored man and woman. Brown skinned, 
they looked like one of our Virginia butlers and his 
mother, and they were very well dressed. She slept 
through the performance. They were the only col- 
ored people in the house. 

I went from Paris to London with a cousin of 
mine as an escort, on Saturday afternoon. I 
thought after reaching there I would go out and 
make some purchases, but everything in England 
was closed at 12 o'clock on Saturday, including 
stores, factories, etc. This was a great contrast 
to the Continent, as in Paris all places stayed open 
and laborers worked at everything on Sunday. I 
arrived in London at the height of its season. All 
the best operas were in full swing. I heard Adelina 
Patti one night in La Somnambule, it was the 
first opera she ever appeared in in London, and then 

140 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

I heard her again in Aida with Schalchi and Nico- 
lini. I went to see the magicians, Masteline and 
Cook, with my cousin, the Reverend Henry Alex- 
ander, he did not go to the opera or theatre. The 
summer days are so long in London, and ladies are 
not allowed to wear hats or bonnets in theatres, 
so they could be seen driving to the theaters, with 
scarfs over their heads in daylight. And when I 
attended evening services in the churches, I came 
out and found the sun shining at 9 p. m. 

I went to Westminster Abbey Sunday afternoon, 
June 30th, and Dean Stanley preached a sermon, 
the text from Isaiah, beginning, "I will mention the 
loving kindnesses of the Lord." The mayor and 
the sheriffs of the city of London came to the ser- 
vices in their robes, a man carrying the mace in 
front of the Mayor. The Dean and other clergy 
went out to meet them at the door, and they all 
came back in a procession escorting them to their 
seats near the pulpit. 

I was very much interested in going through the 
Tower of London and was much impressed by 
seeing the long narrow room with only one win- 
dow, the walls so thick that the window could not 

141 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

be reached without lying down on the wall below 
the window, and stretching out your arms, where 
Sir Walter Raleigh was imprisoned for twelve 
years, and then taken out and executed. I was 
very much struck at seeing the sentinels of the 
Horse Guards, magnificent looking men they were, 
on fine horses, in full uniform, breast plates, and 
helmets and high boots. They had backed their 
horses into the arched recesses on either side of the 
gates, and they stood there, neither horses nor men 
winking an eye that I could see, nor making any 
movement whatever. 

We spent a day at Windsor, went through the 
Palace and drove about the park, and also saw St. 
George's Chapel and the tombs of the Kings. I 
was not surprised that Queen Victoria chose to 
live at Windsor instead of Buckingham Palace. 
Eaton College is situated right across the river 
from Windsor. I saw Queen Victoria in an open 
carriage, she was going to Marlborough House for 
a garden party given by the Prince and Princess 
of Wales, Edward and Alexandra. I had a beau- 
tiful trip up the river to Hampton Court and the 
Kew Gardens. 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

In London the houses looked black and dingy af- 
ter Paris, but Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens 
were beautiful, and it was very interesting to sit 
in the park on Sundays and see the fashionable 
people promenading, and every day it was inter- 
esting to watch the ladies in Rotten Row. Ladies, 
gentlemen, and children rode every day, rain or 
sunshine. 

I was in London about six weeks and then in 
travelling through England I went to Kenilworth 
Castle, and Stratford-on-the-Avon, and stopped a 
day or two at York, and spent Sunday at Newcas- 
tle, and went on to Scotland and visited Abbots- 
ford which seemed sacred ground to me. I had been 
brought up on Sir Walter Scott's books and was 
interested in everything connected with him, and 
went to Melrose Abbey, and Dryberg Abbey, and 
then went on to Edinburgh. It is a beautifully 
situated city. I visited the Castle, Holyrood Pal- 
ace, and went through the melancholy old build- 
ing and felt sorry for poor Mary, Queen of Scots, 
living in that gloomy old building in that miser- 
able climate, but we had beautiful weather while 
I was there. We went from there to Stirling 

143 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Castle and through the Trossachs by Loch Katrine 
and stopped at a hotel on Loch Lomond. By that 
time the days had gotten so long that it was broad 
daylight after lip. m., and I picked wild flowers on 
the banks of the lake after 11 p. m. The heather 
was in bloom on the mountains, and the associa- 
tions made it all very beautiful and interesting to 
me, but I must say that this scenery was really 
not as beautiful as the scenery around Lexington, 
Virginia, my home, and the Trossachs not equal 
to Goshen Pass. When we were leaving Ayr and 
all the Burns associations, a man leaned out of a 
car window and played Bonnie Doone on a clar- 
ionet just at sunset, one of the sweetest things I 
ever heard. 

We went from Scotland over to Belfast in Ire- 
land, and from there went on to the beautiful 
lakes of Killarney. The heather there was in full 
bloom and much finer flowers than in Scotland. 
While going from the northern part of Ireland to 
the southern part, we saw many troops getting in 
the cars going north, and my cousin William A. 
Anderson, asked a man in the cars where they were 
going, and the man said, "There is to be a walk on 

144 




My Husband, John H. Moore 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

the wall at Londonderry." My cousin could not 
understand what in the world he meant, then I re- 
membered that Miss Patton, the Scotch-Irish lady 
at St. Remo, had told me that every year on a cer- 
tain day the Orangemen had a walk on the wall 
at Londonderry, (the walk on the wall being a 
procession), and the Catholics would stone them, 
then the Catholics and the Protestants would have 
the most terrible fights, so the soldiers were going 
up to try to keep order. 

I spent two weeks at Queenstown, resting and 
waiting to join Dr. Terhune and his family on the 
boat, the ship Adriatic of the White Star Line, to 
come back to America. We landed in New York 
after a very rough voyage. We had a great deal 
of trouble at the Custom House, because the men 
all wanted bribes, although I had nothing dutiable. 

I went home to Lexington, Virginia, in Septem- 
ber, 1878. 



145 



WANDERINGS 

I stayed two months in Lexington after my re- 
turn from abroad. My home being rented out, I 
went to Richmond for the winter, where I had 
many friends and relatives. I spent a month in 
Baltimore in the spring, and then returned to Lex- 
ington to take possession of my home. Two ladies 
from Maine, whom I met in Richmond, were trav- 
elling through the country to the Natural Bridge, 
and called to see me on their way back. They had 
returned just a short time before from a three year's 
trip through Europe, and they said they had never 
seen a more beautiful country than ours. That 
summer I spent the month of August at the Green- 
brier White Sulphur Springs, where I met Dr. 
and Mrs. Zolikoffer, who had returned to this coun- 
try. They spent the month of October with me 
in my home. The following summer I spent in 
having my old home put in perfect repair and made 
some alterations and improvements. I built a new 
conservatory, made a new stairway, two bay win- 

146 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

dows, and some porches, for all of which I drew 
the designs and directed the workmen. 

The winter of 1880 and 1881 was very cold here 
the canal froze and we could not get coal, we could 
get wood though. Three of my young girl cousins 
came to me in the spring and attended the finals 
at Washington and Lee and the Virginia Military 
Institute, and I gave them a large party, and we 
had dancing; the band played on the lawn which 
was decorated with lanterns, and the house and 
grounds looked so pretty all illuminated. 

In the fall of 1881, my husband and myself went 
out to spend the winter in California; we went out 
by the northern route and returned by the south- 
ern. We stopped at Baltimore and at Chicago and 
had very pleasant travelling companions on the 
way out. We went to the Palace Hotel in San 
Francisco, a very fine hotel, and afterwards by the 
advice of some of our friends, got an apartment at 
the Trusdale House, kept by a Boston woman, who 
was a wonderful manager. They had Irish maids 
and cooks, and Chinese men did the cleaning and 
made the fires; we had coal fires in an open grate. 
I never saw so many bay-windows in a city in my 

147 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

life, the Palace Hotel was encrusted with them, all 
the windows on the outside of the hotel being bay- 
windows. Most of the houses in the city also had 
bay-windows. There was a wide beautiful court 
in the center of the hotel, where carriages could 
drive in. I was told that fuel was so dear they 
were anxious to get all the sun they could. 

We spent six weeks there and then went to Los 
Angeles. The beautiful flowers, paper and eucalyp- 
tus trees (the latter being the blue gum of Aus- 
tralia) were so like those of San Remo in Italy, I 
felt as if I were there. We had a good boarding 
house kept by a Massachusetts woman, with a 
Chinese man for cook at $40.00 a month. A lady 
boarder in the house had a white nurse, who wor- 
ried the Chinese cook by going into the kitchen, 
using his pans, etc., and one day he flew into a 
rage, yelling and hitting her over the head with a 
dipper, she had him arrested and fined, but she did 
not go into the kitchen any more. They had a 
half grown Chinese boy who used to bring up my 
wood and make my fire and carry the water. I 
spoke kindly to him and asked him questions 
about his home in China, he told the maid that I 

148 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

was "Heap high-toned lady." Mrs Helen Hunt 
Jackson, the authoress, had a room opposit mine, 
she would call the Chinese boy to bring her hot 
water, he would put his head in the door and say, 
"Won't do it, git it yourself." 

We took beautiful excursions, driving through 
the country. We were told that seven months in 
the year they had no rain, and then generally a 
rainy season, but this year 1881 and 1882, the 
rainy seasons did not come, and the immense flocks 
of sheep were starving as the grass was all dried 
up, it was distressing to see them when we were 
driving. One morning I waked to find it snowing 
fast. We were told that it was the first snow that 
they had had in thirty years. Everything was 
white, but by mid-day it was gone, and the helio- 
trope trained over the porch was uninjured. The 
mountains were covered with snow and when we 
would walk in the sunshine the wind from them 
would chill us. My husband and myself both took 
cold, and so did everybody else. The Los Angeles 
river enabled the people to water their orange 
groves and gardens. The flowers were a constant 
delight to us, but I found the California fruit either 
sour or tasteless. 

149 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

We intended going home through New Mexico 
and Texas to New Orleans. Fortunately we met a 
man who had just come from Texas, who told me 
to be sure to carry provisions for the journey, as 
there were no eating houses or dining cars, so I 
had a large basket of lunch put up, got some plates, 
cups, etc., also some tea and some California wines. 
After we had gone some distance, there was no one 
in our pullman sleeping car but a pretty young wo- 
man with her eight months old baby, going to her 
mother in Texas, she had brought no provisions, 
but fortunately we had plenty to give her. The 
pullman conductor and the colored porter were both 
from Virginia, and a hunter we saw at one of the 
stopping places with a pile of buffalo meat was al- 
so a Virginian. Our conductor bought a tongue 
and presented it to us. The porter used to boil 
water on the stove for our tea. We passed through 
the deserts and saw a most beautiful mirage. Af- 
ter we reached Texas two men got on the car, a 
perfect arsenal around their waists — pistols, knives, 
etc., they said they had come through the Apache 
country. We saw some Apache Indians at the 
stations. We passed a town called Togan in New 

150 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Mexico, where all of the roofs of the town were 
canvas, and I counted the signs of seven bar rooms 
from the car window. We stopped at Dallas two 
days and went on to Houston, where they had had 
a flood and the streets were impassable, vehicles 
stuck in the mud, since then I have heard that the 
streets have been paved). A drummer on the cars 
showed us a high plank walk where we could get 
to the hotel, and fortunately we had a full moon to 
light us on our way. The next morning was Sun- 
day and I was so tired I stayed in bed, but my 
husband went to church and heard a sermon by a 
former gentleman of our town, Lexington, Virgin- 
ia, and the organist and several of the members 
of the choir were also from Lexington. 

We were a week on the way from California to 
New Orleans and the night after we reached there 
we went to the opera, and I was so tired I could 
hardly keep awake. It was the opera of Hamlet, 
the last part of the opera is much better than the 
first. Anna Louis Cary, the fine contralto, was 
there. We saw Gilbert's and Sullivan's "Patience," 
and Haverly's Minstrels, and many other enter- 
tainments. The whole city was getting ready for 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

the Carnival as if a real king were coming. I had 
already seen the Roman Carnival which kept up a 
long time, and the people enjoyed it as a real frolic, 
throwing confetti, etc. The Carnival at New Or- 
leans was a grand spectacle with the processions 
and floats and cars both in daylight and at night, 
with the reception of king and queen, and many 
other entertainments. 

The people of the city of New Orleans were sup- 
plied with water from great tanks or hogsheads put 
up behind the houses to catch rain water from the 
roof. The city drainage was very bad, and they 
could not dig graves because they would fill up 
with water, so the dead had to be placed above the 
ground, the rich in vaults and the poor in brick 
houses holding many. The weather in March be- 
came so hot that we could not go out until evening. 
We came home and had very cold weather. The 
peach trees were in full bloom when we came 
through Georgia, miles and miles of pink bloom. 
We spent the summer at home and went to Europe 
in the fall. 

We sailed from Quebec in November, 1882, to 
get the shorter ocean voyage. We stopped at 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Springfield, Massachusetts, and spent a day and 
night with the Terhunes, stayed several days at 
Quebec, and sailed on one of the ships of the Al- 
len line. I found sailing down the St. Lawrence 
very pleasant. We went through the Straits of 
Belle Isle and out on the ocean in the night. I 
awoke very seasick. My husband went on deck in 
the morning and was overcome, but soon recovered 
and was not sick any more. We landed in the 
northern part of Ireland, and went to Londonderry, 
stayed several days, saw all of our Scotch names 
in the cemetery there, and drove around the walls 
where they have their walks and fights. We went 
on to Larne expecting to cross the Channel to 
Stranraer, but when we got on the boat the Cap- 
tain told us there was a terrible storm and advised 
us to wait until the next afternoon at 4 o'clock, so 
we went to a very fine hotel nearby, where the rich 
linen merchants of Belfast come in the summer to 
enjoy the surf bathing. We were there in Novem- 
ber, 1882, so there were no guests in the hotel, but 
proprietor and servants were very nice and atten- 
tive. We had bright fires to sit by and a farmer 
came riding over and spent the morning with us. 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

He was very intelligent, well read and most agree- 
able, large and red-faced, and as soon as he was 
seated had a large mug or stein of beer brought in, 
we both declined taking any, but I think he drank 
three or four mugs of beer while he sat there. We 
crossed over to Scotland at 4 p. m. and spent the 
night at Dumfries. 

The next day we went to London and had a 
very agreeable companion, a gentleman from Glas- 
gow, in the first class compartment with us. He 
told us he was on his way to see the review of the 
British army, just returned from Egypt, by Queen 
Victoria. When we arrived in London in the even- 
ing we went with him to the grand hotel St. Pan- 
cres. We found it very good. Many of the wait- 
ers in the dining-room were Germans, could not 
understand English, we would have to call the 
head-waiter to explain. Many German and Ital- 
ians used to go to England in the summer to learn 
the language; they would work without pay, and 
sometimes they paid for the privilege. When we 
arose the next morning we saw a London fog. It 
looked as if a very dirty blanket had been placed 
over the windows, and even in the breakfast room 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

there was some fog although everything had been 
done to keep it out. 

After a few hours we could hear troops passing, 
and could hear the drums, but could see nothing. 
Very soon a red light seemed to penetrate the fog, 
and then great banks of fog rolled away with the 
awful red light streaming through; it was like a 
great fire. I asked my husband what he would think 
of it if he saw it at home, he said, "I would think 
the Judgment Day had come!" About 11 a. m. 
the fog began to disperse, and before long had dis- 
appeared, the sun shining brightly. "Queen's wea- 
ther" the people called it. We started out to see 
what we could, telling the young man driving our 
hansom cab we were Americans just arrived and 
wanted to see everything. He drove us down to 
Oxford Street and Pall Mall, all splendidly decor- 
ated with flags and scarlet cloth, etc. A mounted 
policeman would order us off the street and our 
coachman would drive off at one corner and on at 
another, until we had seen all the decorations on the 
streets that the procession was to pass through. He 
then drove up to Carleton House Terrace and said 
we had better get out and try to see, but I soon saw 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

there was no chance for me with that crowd of tall 
English people, and I noticed every now and then 
parties of people handing tickets to guards and go- 
ing down some steps, so the next party I saw I said, 
"Come, let's go with them," but J. said, "Oh, no, 
we have no tickets." But go I would, and he had 
to come, and we soon found ourselves in St. James' 
Park near the Horse Guards' Barracks, where the 
Queen was to review the troops. We were near 
the driveway which was roped off, and people kindly 
put me in front and showed us programs they had, 
and soon we heard the trumpets, and before long 
saw the Royal Horse Guards come at a trot, splen- 
did men on splendid horses, the sun glancing on 
their drawn swords, breast plates, and tall helmets. 
Queen Victoria was in an open carriage, her eldest 
daughter, Victoria, Crown Princess Frederick of 
Prussia, was seated at her side, John Bull and anoth- 
er footman seated up behind, and Edward, Prince of 
Wales, on horseback on her right, the Duke of Cam- 
bridge, her cousin and commander of her armies, 
riding on the left of the carriage. In the next 
carriage was Alexandra, Princess of Wales, and 
other royalties in other carriages. As soon as the 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Queen and Royal Family and Guards were in place, 
the army began to move. They were in their red 
coats, (khaki had not been then introduced). The 
Cold Stream Guards, with their bear skins on their 
heads, and other organizations whose names we 
had heard of, passed on foot. There were the Gor- 
don Highlanders, their officers on horses, their 
plaids across their shoulders, and the Indian con- 
tingent, the officers riding, one of them a grey 
bearded man who had been in the Queen's service 
forty years. They had diamonds and other jewels 
on their turbans and sword hilts. There was every 
arm of the service in the parade — cavalry, infantry, 
artillery, ambulances, etc. I saw the Duke of Con- 
naught, the Queen's third son, Sir Garnet Woolsley, 
and General Sir. Evelyn Wood. I think we were 
about four hours standing there to see the proces- 
sion, and when the troops passed on to the streets, 
the crowd of people in the park rushed out after 
them, but we waited. After awhile the Queen and 
all the Princes and Princesses and Guards passed 
close by us on their way back to Buckingham Pal- 
ace. We found our cab awaiting us, and we drove 
back to our hotel. On the way back the Horse 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Guards Blue passed on the way to their barracks; 
they wear blue coats, the other regiment red coats, 
but they wear the same tall helmets with horse 
tails down their backs, cuirasses with shining breast 
plates, white doe skin trousers that fit like their 
skin, and high top boots, they had white sheep- 
skin saddle cloths with the wool on. They are 
all picked men six feet tall. We met our Scotch 
friend at dinner at the hotel, and he told us that he 
had secured a window on the street to see the pro- 
cession and came back to the hotel for us, but we 
had left. We thanked him and told him of our ex- 
perience. I never saw anyone so astonished. 

The next day we saw in the papers that Henry 
Irving and Ellen Terry were acting, so in the even- 
ing we drove down to the theatre. The man at 
the office gave us two tickets, we asked if they were 
good seats, he said they were the best in the house 
and the only ones he had for sale. We had two 
chairs in the front row of a box, where we had a 
fine view of the stage and the brilliant audience. A 
gentleman sitting on a chair behind me was trying 
to see and hear, so I moved aside to let him come 
forward, he was profuse in his thanks, said he had 
tried for three months to get a ticket. 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

We went from London to Paris, then to Biarritz 
on the Bay of Biscay, a beautiful place. The Hotel 
Victoria was on the cliffs. One night we had a 
magnificent storm, the Bay of Biscay is celebrated 
for its storms. We stayed at Biarritz about two 
weeks, and then went on into Spain. We had a 
disagreeable time at the Custom House, and I had 
to pay $15.00 on my old clothes. 

We stopped in Burgos, the only thing to see 
there was the Cathedral. Walking back to the ho- 
tel, we were mobbed by beggars, surrounded so we 
couldn't walk. A nice gentleman came along and 
scolded and cussed them in Spanish and drove 
them away. At Burgos we met a French naval of- 
ficer and his wife, and a lady friend, wife of another 
officer, traveling with them, and we came across 
them everywhere we went in Spain. We went from 
Burgos to the Escurial. On the train we met two 
nice gentlemen, one an Englishman, the other a 
Hollander who lived in Spanish South America, 
and spoke the Spanish language well, and we found 
him of great use to us. The Escurial is most inter- 
esting, it has a church which is the burial place of 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

the royal family of Spain, a palace, a monastery, 
and a barracks for soldiers. 

We went from there to Madrid and stayed at the 
Hotel de Paris. We found it very cold, snow piled 
up along the streets. I had a little sitting room 
with an open fire which our Englishman, Mr. Mac- 
Goran, enjoyed very much when he came in to see 
us. Our Dutch Spanish-American left us at Ma- 
drid, and we did not see him any more. The first 
day at Madrid I was tired and rested, and J. and 
our English friend walked out and saw the picture 
galleries, and as they returned through the streets 
J. gave a beggar a little bit of silver instead of a 
copper; soon the street was filled with beggars 
coming in every direction. The two gentlemen con- 
cluded to run for it, which they did, and raced for 
the hotel and escaped. Our Englishman wanted a 
bath and asked for directions to a Russian bath, 
and he arrived at a convent, where he created a 
great disturbance among the nuns and their pro- 
tectors. He gave a very funny account of it. We 
met the French officer and his wife and their friend 
in the hotel in Madrid, and all went to the opera 
together, and saw Regioletto. A fine company and 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

a splendid audience. The whole court was there in 
full dress, blazing with jewels. 

We saw King Alphonso driving on the street 
one day attended by many officers all in full uni- 
forms and plumes. 

One can not see the best paintings of the two 
greatest Spanish painters, Velasuez and Murillo, 
until one goes to Spain, although they have some 
fine ones in Paris and other places. 

We went from Madrid to Cordova. So glad to 
go south, Madrid is about the same latitude as 
New York, and colder. We saw the beautiful 
mosque built by the Moors, now turned into a 
Catholic church, the beautiful horseshoe arches and 
hundreds of beautiful columns. When we came 
out of the cathedral and saw the orange trees laden 
with oranges the porter said if we would like to 
have some he would come that night and get them 
while the Monks were asleep. 

From Cordova we went to Seville. We saw there 
the beautiful Moorish tower of the Giralda. We 
drove with our French friends in a carriage to the 
Moorish palace of the Alcazar, but were told that 
the king's mother, Queen Isabella, was living there, 

161 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

and there was no admittance, so we returned to our 
carriage, the French officer leaving his card, and 
soon a servant came running to tell us to come 
back, and a major-domo in scarlet coat very much 
trimmed, with a white stick with a ball on the end 
of it in his hand, conducted us all through the palace 
and gardens, except the queen's private apartments. 
This beautiful Moorish palace is kept in perfect re- 
pair, and all furnished for a residence. One of the 
drawing-rooms had lounges all around it, covered 
with the most beautiful embroidery, that had been 
sent to Queen Isabella by the Sultan of Turkey. 

We went to see the Spanish women and girls 
making cigars. 

We spent Christmas at Seville, 1882, and then 
went to Granada, and stayed at a hotel named 
Washington Irving on the mountain close by the 
Alhambra. We found our French friends there. 
We spent a great deal of time walking through 
the courts of the Alhambra, and admiring the mag- 
nificent Moorish architecture, that I think the most 
beautiful in the world. We spent two weeks there. 

From Granada we went to Valencia. The food in 
Spain was very trying to me, everything floating 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

in oil, and garlic, so that when I reached Valencia 
I was quite ill. Fortunately a kind French woman 
kept the hotel. She had just won thirty thousand 
dollars at the government lottery there. One day 
I nearly fainted at the dinner table, and she took 
me into her nice little sitting-room, laid me on a 
couch, and gave me a glass of Chartreuse. Then 
the whole week I was there she would send up to 
my little sitting room where I had an open fire, 
the nicest hroiled chicken and steak, all cooked in 
real French style, and quantities of fruit. I had 
a French boy nineteen years old, badly pock mark- 
ed, for chambermaid. When I was able to drive 
about, I saw the Spanish ladies driving in open 
carriages with black Spanish lace veils over their 
heads. On coming to Valencia the country was 
beautiful. We saw men with black jackets and 
Ted sashes around their waists, climbing long lad- 
ders to gather dates from the very tall palm trees, 
and in many places women and men were gather- 
ing oranges, and at the stations piles of boxes and 
crates of oranges were seen ready for shipment. 

Next we went to Barcelona. Our French friends 
were at the hotel there, and one of the ladies said 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

that the Spanish cooking had made her ill. In 
Italy one can get French bread and French cook- 
ing at the hotels and boarding houses, but in Spain 
there is nothing but the dark bread which is al- 
ways a little sour, and the Spanish stews with oil 
and garlic, and sometimes they have the edible 
snails in the stews, the Spanish men pick them out 
of the shells with toothpicks. It is needless to say 
that we did not eat the snails. 

Every train we traveled on in Spain had a guard 
of soldiers on it on account of the brigands. 

We went from Barcelona to Marseilles, and 
thence to Nice where we stayed two weeks, and of 
course while there went over to Monte Carlo to 
hear the music and watch the gamblers. One of 
the bankers at Nice told us that a Russian came 
and deposited a large sum of money in the bank, 
and every morning he would come and draw out a 
certain amount and go over to Monte Carlo, and 
in the evening would bring back his winnings and 
telegraph them to Russia, never put anything back 
in the bank he had gained. After some time he 
had gained a large amount of money, but at last 
he came back and told the banker his luck had 
changed and he was going home. 

164 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 



From Nice we went to Genoa. The day after we 
got there they unveiled a statue to Mizzini, great 
crowds were there, and they were having pro- 
cessions and speeches. 

From there we went to Pisa and stayed two days. 
From there to Rome. The whole country from Pisa 
to Rome down the west coast is very malarious, 
and we were told all of the people moved out of 
some of the towns in the summer and go to the 
mountains. All along the railroad they had plant- 
ed eucalyptus trees, and at the stations they had 
planted groves of them, as they were considered 
a preventive of malaria. Rome used to be very un- 
healthful, but since they have drained the Pontine 
Marshes it is as healthful as any city in Europe. 

When we reached Rome we found our friend, 
Mrs. Amoss, from Maryland. She had her own car- 
riage and two fine horses, and she would send her 
English maid every morning to ask where we 
would like to go that day, and would drive us all 
around everywhere. Of course, we did a great 
deal of sightseeing, and had beautiful drives out 
on the Campania. We met some friends from Rich- 
mond, Virginia, there — Mrs. W. and her two sons, 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

who had been down to Naples and had stayed two 
weeks. She said that English people had told 
her before she went, not to drink the water in 
Naples, or stay in the lower part of the city, and 
that they had done both and were perfectly well, 
which showed that you needn't mind what people 
told you. The next morning my husband went 
down to the Hotel de Russie to call on them and 
found they had gone on to Florence, and that the 
youngest son was very ill. He was ill at Florence 
for two or three months with typhus fever con- 
tracted at Naples. 

We spent some months in Rome and were there 
for the carnival, and went on to Naples in the 
Spring. The morning we left for Rome it had 
turned very cold and the fountains were draped 
with icicles, and on the way to Naples we had a 
heavy snow storm. It was very cold when we 
reached there and as we had nothing but open 
carriages we suffered driving to our hotel. We 
found a little fire in the reading room most com- 
fortable. Of course, the cold weather did not last 
long, but the people suffered very much. As we 
drove through the streets from the station all the 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

shops were wide open and had braziers placed out 
on the streets in front of them filled with charcoal 
with burning pine cones on the top, and people 
were crowding around them trying to get warm. 
In 1883, we were at the Hotel Britanique kept by 
Madame McPherson, where I had been in 1877. It 
was situated high up on the Corso Victor Emanuel. 
The view from there was magnificent. We spent 
a great deal of time in the wonderful aquarium at 
Naples, and the museum, and at Pompeii, and J. 
ascended Vesuvius on the new railroad. We had 
a beautiful day for the trip to Capri, but some 
friends of ours, two young ladies from Chicago, 
went to Capri one day and a storm came down on 
the bay and everyone was seasick. The boat hands 
had to come into the saloon to hold the basins for 
the ladies. When they reached the island no one 
could land, and our friends said they could not 
raise their heads to look out. They were sick for 
several days after they returned to the hotel. 

We returned to Rome in time for Easter, and 
found every place crowded. We were driving 
.around half the night, trying to get into some 
good hotel. At last the proprietor of the Hotel de 

167 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Louvre gave up his own room to us. I was too 
tired to move the next morning, so J. went alone 
to St. Peter's for the music. Even St. Peter's was 
filled with people. He met many acquaintances, 
people we had met in other cities. The music was 
splendid of course. When J. wanted to return to 
the hotel he found he had forgotten its name, and 
the name of the street, so for hours he was going 
from one hotel to another, the hotel clerks looking 
on the registers for our names, and kindly assist- 
ing him. At last he reached the Louvre in time 
for dinner. Our friend, Mrs. Amoss had an apart- 
ment near, and she took us in her carriage to 
many villas and grounds where cabs were not al- 
lowed. 

Afterwards we went to Florence and spent some 
time there. We boarded with good Madame Liotti, 
No. 1 Piazza Sodireni, where I had been before 
several times. J. went to Venice with some friends 
leaving me at Madame Giotti's. 

From Florence we went to Milan for a week, and 
thence to Balagio on Lake Como, and from there 
we went through the St. Gothard Tunnel to Lu- 
cerne, and then to Paris. 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Paris in May is beautiful and gay. The Champs 
Elysee — it is like the "Elysian Fields," the horse 
chestnut trees with their pyramids of white bloom, 
four rows of them all along the wide avenue, and 
green grass, bright flowers, and fountains on either 
side with seats for the weary, all along up the in- 
cline from the Palace de la Concord to the Arch de 
Triumph-^.a mile, handsome buildings for the back- 
ground. When in Paris in November everything 
was dark and dismal and raining. 

We reached Paris early Sunday morning and I 
did not go out, but J. said he would go to church, 
so I gave him directions as he had never been 
there, to go up the Champs Elysee and find a 
side street and turn to the right for the American 
Church, but he never found that church. He was 
so delighted with the sunshine and flowers and the 
gay people that he walked way up to the Arch de 
Triumphe, and ascended the steps to the top of it — 
such a view, the beautiful city spread out at his 
feet, the river winding through it with its many 
bridges, the great golden dome of the Invalides 
shining in the sunlight, and many other churches 
and towers and great buildings could be seen. 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGI NIA 

When he came down from the arch he walked on 
down the avenue, and sat on a bench in a grove of 
trees; soon brought refreshments — tea, coffee, ices, 
and wines and cakes. He was very tired and en- 
joyed the rest. Soon a curtain was raised from a 
stage back among the trees, and girls danced and 
sang, the young men on the benches keeping time 
with their teaspoons and ladies clapping their hands 
and applauding, then some acrobats performed. I 
was getting uneasy about J. when he walked in 
quite excited, having enjoyed the day immensely. 
After dinner in the evening he said he was going 
to write his mother all about his Sunday in Paris, 
I advised him not to, but he said, "Mother would 
understand." So he wrote a long letter, and as 
soon as possible he had an answer from his eldest 
sister, terribly shocked at his behavior. She said 
her mother could not trust herself to write. People 
always say that I find when they are afraid the 
other person won't be severe enough, but sister 
F. was severe; she thought wicked Paris had 
ruined him, so I had to write at once to say that J. 
was most particular about going to church, and 
was really a good, pious man in spite of his first 
Sunday in Pari? 

170 



MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

We spent the month of May in Paris. The Wises 
joined us there. The son and mother had both re- 
covered after months of illness at Florence. The 
elder son had consumption and they had come to 
Europe on account of his health, it did him no 
good and he died soon after his return to America. 
Mrs. Zolikoffer was in Paris, but the good Doctor 
was dead. 

We went on to London June 1, 1883. We had 
an apartment very near Hyde Park. The first day 
we walked out in the Park we found the east wind 
blowing and we shivered and shook from the cold. 
We wore our winter clothes all summer. The 
Wises soon joined us in London, and one evening 
B. the younger son, walked in the park with us 
and we were locked in. We had seen a notice on 
the gate that it would be locked at 9 p. m., but as 
the sun was shining brightly we forgot how far 
north we were and the length of the days in sum- 
mer in England. Some kind English people told 
us of another gate that was left open later, so we 
got out there. J. and B. went to Parliament one 
day and a gentleman who had been in Virginia 
took them in and gave them seats and they heard 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Gladstone speak. We had fine strawberries, and 
the largest gooseberries, I ever saw, in London for 
two months, but peaches and grapes only grow un- 
der glass. I gave a shilling for one small peach. 
When I was ill my doctor told me one day he ate 
much fruit because he suffered from liver disease, 
he said he ate a quart of currants every morning, 
and a quart of gooseberries every evening. 

When we were about to get a trained nurse (I 
was very ill), they gave us a paper directing the 
treatment of the nurse. She must have good meals 
and two quarts of beer every day. I said if she 
should drink all of that beer I should be afraid of 
her, but much to my relief she preferred claret. 
You never see a drunken man in France, Spain, or 
Italy, where they drink wine; but in Great Britain 
where whiskey and brandy are used you see much 
drunkenness, and they even have inebriate asylums 
for ladies. My nurse didn't drink much claret, 
but she drank tea all day and all night, J. bought 
pounds of it for her and she made it on a spirit 
lamp. The nurse and the servants dropped their 
h's till I thought I should do the same when I was 
well. I told an English lady that we didn't drop 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

h's in America, and she said, "Well, how would you 
know uneducated people then?" After I was well 
enough to go out I went in a bath chair all about 
Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. J. always 
went with me. The man who pushed the chair 
had been a soldier in the Crimean War and was 
quite entertaining. 

While we were at Liverpool on our way home, 
J. went to Scotland for a week. We had a stormy 
voyage of twelve days and twelve nights crossing 
the ocean. We shipped seas and had to close the 
hatchways. Such rolling and tumbling, nearly 
everybody was sick, and there was no cooking on 
the ship for three days. Our smoke stacks were 
as white as snow to their tops from the salt on 
them. This was the last part of September. We 
landed at New York and went to our home in 
Lexington, Virginia. A young Englishman ac- 
companied us. He was delighted with our splendid 
fruit. We had peaches and grapes, and he said 
that any nobleman of England would be glad to 
have the fruit we had. He asked why the young 
ladies wore ball dresses to church? I told him that 
ours was a warm climate in summer, and ladies 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

had to wear organdies and other thin goods on ac- 
count of the heat. Our young Englishman said it 
was just like one family in our town, men on the 
street calling my husband John, and everybody 
coming to see us to welcome us home. We had 
many relatives in the town. 

We went to Richmond in the spring and the 
Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs in the summer 
for my health. 

In 1885 we went to New Orleans to the Expo- 
sition. When there some time before we had 
found the weather very warm, now we suffered 
from the cold. Everything at the Exposition had 
been prepared for warm weather, ice cream stands 
and soda water, when everybody was shivering 
and shaking with the cold. The weather ruined the 
Exposition. The rain had poured for three months, 
and they had to build a railroad to transport goods 
from the ships to the grounds. We left there and 
went to Citronell, a little health resort near Mo- 
bile, for a rest. We had some relatives there. We 
then went on to Florida to Jacksonville, and up 
St. John's River to Sanford, and then to Tampa on 
the Gulf. We returned home by Charleston, South 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

Carolina, and spent a week with our cousins, Doc- 
tor William F. Junkin's family. 

One year Mrs. T. J. Jackson visited us during the 
commencements of our colleges, and I gave her 
a large reception. At another time she came with 
her grandchildren to unveil the statue of her hus- 
band, Stonewall Jackson, at the Cemetery, and 
stayed with us. She was a lovely, cultivated, re- 
fined woman, beautiful in her youth. She lived to 
be eighty years old. 

One summer we spent at Newport, Rhode Is- 
land, and there we met Professor Bartlett and his 
family. We returned by Montclair, New Jersey, 
and visited Doctor Junkin's family, who were then 
living there. 

We went to the Chicago Exposition in the fall of 
1893. We went by Clifton Forge and Cincinnati 
only traveling in daylight. I enjoyed Buffalo Bill's 
Show more than anything I saw there, I had been 
to so many expositions. We went to New York 
and visited a cousin there before returning home. 
One fall we went to New York and spent several 
weeks there, and then went to Niagara Falls, and 
from there to visit some relatives in Louisville 
and Lexington, Kentucky. 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

We sometimes went to the Greenbrier White 
Sulphur Springs. For several years we spent the 
month of March at Old Point. We were there 
when the ships were preparing for the Spanish 
War, and from my windows in the Hygeia Hotel I 
could see the sailors and marines drilling on the 
ships. The New York was the nearest in front 
of my windows. Before they went down to Cuba 
they were all painted grey. 

We spent a great many winters in Washington. 
In 1899 and 1900 we spent the winter at 16th and 
Q Streets; there were some delightful people in 
the house, one of them, Mrs. Simpson, played so 
beautifully on the piano, anything you chose to 
ask for without notes, most difficult or very light. 
My old friend Mrs. Amoss was in Washington near 
us. The winter of 1900 and 1901 we were on I 
Street. McKinley was inaugurated in March of 
that year for his second term. Rain and sleet kept 
me in, but I saw much from my bay window. The 
West Point cadets marched by, their fine band 
playing. The winter of 1901-1902 I spent at home. 
Then the three following winters I spent in Wash- 
ington; 1902-1903 in Bancroft Place; 1903-04 I 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

boarded at Mrs. Delaplanes, 917 Sixteenth Street; 
and 1904-05 on M Street near Thomas Circle. 

In March of that year Roosevelt was inaugurat- 
ed for his second term. That winter was very cold, 
much snow and ice. The snow would melt a great 
deal in daylight and freeze at night, until the 
streets were covered with ice and the walking was 
dangerous, but we wore rubber shoes and I used 
an umbrella for a cane. When March came Penn- 
sylvania Avenue was cleaned of snow and ice for 
the procession, costing $5,000, I heard. The 4th 
of March was a bright, beautiful day, very cold, but 
we were fortunate in getting seats nearly opposite 
the White House and the reviewing stand on La- 
fayette Square, which were protected from the 
wind, and we spent most of the day there. The 
crowd was tremendous. The procession was fine, 
and I was especially interested in the Carlisle In- 
dian cadets, who were uniformed and marching 
beautifully, led by four old chiefs in feathers and 
regular savage dress, Old Geronimo, the terrible 
Apache Chief who defied the United States soldiers 
for so long, at their head. The old chiefs were 
mounted on ponies. The other organization most 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIR GINIA 

interesting to me was the Richmond Blues, in their 
Revolutionary uniform of blue and white, their 
white plumes waving in the wind. The troops of 
each state came with their governor at their head 
on horseback, and some of the governors looked as 
if it was their first attempt at riding, but when the 
Maryland troops came, their bands playing "My 
Maryland," with Governor Warfield at their head, 
riding splendidly, the crowd thought he was Gen- 
eral Fitz Lee, the resemblance was so great, and 
they cheered tremendously. 

We went in the fall of 1905 to Florida, and stop- 
ped at Jacksonville, Palm Beach, and Miami. Af- 
terwards crossed the waters to Nassau, the capital 
of the Behamas belonging to the British, and cele- 
brated during the Civil War as a base for blockade 
runners to the Southern ports. It is only fifteen 
hours from Miami. One of the first things I 
noticed on arriving at Nassau were the policemen, 
great black giants. They were brought from Hon- 
duras, and I was told that the negroes in Nassau 
are dreadfully afraid of them. They have showy 
uniforms and are drilled like soldiers, and are 
marched to church on Sunday and seated in the 
gallery opposite the pulpit. 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

We found Nassau a delightful winter climate, the 
trade winds keeping it from being too hot. Of 
course, clothing must be light, and you keep out 
of the sun. The fruit is delicious and of many va- 
rieties, the oranges the sweetest I ever tasted. J. 
thought they were too sweet and preferred grape 
fruit. 

There is an island near belonging to an Irishman, 
that has a beautiful bathing beach, the sand is as 
white as snow, you take a boat and go over to 
this island covered with cocoanut palms and orange 
trees, which have benches and tables under them, 
with attendants pealing oranges and filling large 
dishes with them, each orange having a little sharp 
stick in it to hold it by to prevent soiling your 
hands. The water is bright and beautiful, more 
beautiful than the Bay of Naples. A man from 
New York they said stayed in the water at the 
beach for three hours, swimming each day. He 
was called the "mahogany man" because he was 
so sunburned. Bathing was fine and many people 
enjoyed it. 

There were beautiful sea gardens and we went 
out to see them in glass bottom boats. The fish 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

brought into Nassau were beautiful, brilliant col- 
ors, gold with red stripes, or spots of blue, and 
silver fish striped or spotted red or blue. The oriole 
fish is orange and black. There are a great many 
varities of fish there. I saw one dreadful looking 
one, very large and long like a serpeant, with a 
head like a dog, and teeth that I was told could 
bite a man's leg off. Of course there are sharks 
there too. The flowers were my constant delight, 
and there are many strange trees and plants there. 

One of Flagler's fine hotels is at Nassau, and they 
had a very fine orchestra that gave concerts three 
times a day. We would sit on the porches there 
every morning to hear the music and see the beau- 
tiful views of the water, with yachts and other 
boats riding over it, and see the millionaires pro- 
menading in their fine gowns and jewels, which 
they even wore in the morning. 

The winter of 1906-07 I spent at home. In the 
Spring we went to Richmond to the Reunion of 
the Confederate Veterans, and the unveiling of 
President Davis' statue, and then afterwards we 
went down by boat to the Jamestown Exposition. 
The next winter, 1907-08, I spent most of the time 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRG INIA 

in Richmond, and March at Newport News, where 
my cousin, Mrs. W. had an apartment at the Hotel 
Warrick. I spent the summer at home, my last 
summer there, for I sold my home and twenty 
acres of land to the Virginia Military Institute. 
The next five winters I spent in Washington at 
Mrs. Delaplanes on Sixteenth Street. 

I was in Washington at Mrs. Delaplane's the 
winter of 1909 when Taft was inaugurated. The 
day before Mr. Taft was inaugurated we had heavy 
rains, and the night before I noticed it was turning 
colder, and sleet was beating against the windows, 
and I told the ladies seated in Mrs. D.'s parlor the 
weather would be bad next day, but they exclaim- 
ed, "Oh no, the Weather Bureau says 'fine weath- 
er.' " We had a blizzard. When I awoke in the 
morning the wind was blowing great guns, and 
sheets of snow were flying down the street. Our 
Virginia Military Institute cadets had come to be 
in the parade, and General Nichols ordered rub- 
ber overshoes for the whole corps. By noon the 
snow ceased falling, but the rain the day before and 
the snow in the morning had covered the streets 
with slush, and a bitter cold wind chilled one to 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

the bone. The railroads were blocked and many 
people could not get to Washington. The 7th 
Regiment of New York was stopped on the way, 
and Baltimore was filled with people who could 
not get over. I did not go out, but saw the pro- 
cession returning on K Street from my window, 
and the fireworks that night showing above the 
houses. 

I was also in Washington at Mrs. Delaplane's 
the winter of 1913 when Wilson was inaugurated 
for his first term. The 4th was a beautiful, bright 
day, and we had seats in the stand on Lafayette 
Park, opposite the reviewing stand. There was a 
great crowd of on-lookers, and a grand procession. 
Our V. M. I. cadets were in it, also the Richmond 
Blues, and West Point cadets. The Woman's Suf- 
frage Parade was the day before, the 3rd of March, 
and there was such an enormous crowd of people 
that is was with difficulty the parade could get 
through the crowd. I was also in Washington for 
Wilson's second inauguration in 1917, but the 
weather was so cold and windy I did not go out. 

In 1913-14 I stayed at 1122 Vermont Avenue. I 
spent four winters at this place. The many winters 

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MEMORIES OF A LONG LIFE IN VIRGINIA 

I spent in Washington were very pleasant. I met 
many interesting people and very kind ones. 

I spent the month of June at Atlantic City for 
nine or ten years. 

After we entered the War in 1917, I have since 
remained in Lexington. 



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